Suborder: Mesobatrachia
Number of Genera: 4 – Pipa, Xenopus, Hymenochirus, Pseudhymenochirus
Number of Species: 41
Pipidae is known as the Tongueless frog family since they have no tongues. Other notable traits of the family are fully webbed back legs, flatted body, and having a lateral line system. These frogs are mostly fully aquatic, only come up to the surface to breath or to move from a drying up pond.
Members of the family are popular in the frog trade. I have owned African Clawed Frogs and Dwarf Clawed Frogs.
Pipa is the Suriname Toad or Star-Fingered Toad genus. They are found in South America and Central America.
Xenopus is the Clawed Frog genus. They are native to sub-Saharan Africa but they have been introduced to the states.
Pseudhymenochirus has only one species in it, the Merlin’s Dwarf Gray Frog (Pseudhymenochirus merlini). It is found in Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Sierra Leone.
The genus Hyemnochirus is known as the Dwarf Clawed Frog or African dwarf frogs. It contains four species from Africa. They are smaller than the genus Xenopus.
14 thoughts on “Pipidae -Tongueless Frog Family”