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Amphibians and reptiles

African bullfrog

Amazing fact

African bullfrogs form a tough cocoon from shed layers of skin.

University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web
African bullfrog in its habitat (illustration)

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An illustration based on the real animal.

A little discovery to share.

African bullfrogs form a tough cocoon from shed layers of skin.

SourceUniversity of Michigan Animal Diversity Web — Pyxicephalus adspersus

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THE REAL WORLD

The real African bullfrog

Scientific name
Pyxicephalus adspersus
Japanese name
アフリカウシガエル
Group
Amphibians and reptiles
Class
Amphibia
Order
Anura
Family
Pyxicephalidae
Genus
Pyxicephalus
Facts about the real animal.
01

It lives in central and southern Africa.

鳥羽水族館 — アフリカウシガエル
02

It is very greedy and leaps on small birds and small mammals to eat them.

鳥羽水族館 — アフリカウシガエル
03

Unusually for a frog, the male grows bigger than the female.

鳥羽水族館 — アフリカウシガエル

How the African bullfrog lives

Their brief active period depends on the rainy season. In the rainy season, they sit partly buried with their nose exposed, waiting for small animals to pass. They drop the lower jaw forcefully, flipping the tongue out to seize prey. Adults dig underground using a bump on their powerful hind legs.

University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web

Basic data

Diet
Small birds and small mammals
Range
Central to southern Africa
鳥羽水族館

Where the African bullfrog has been recorded

World map with dots where the African bullfrog has been recorded
Each dot marks a place with observations or specimens shared on GBIF. Some records are of animals that strayed or were brought by people, so the dots are not always where the animal lives.

Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF

Where it livesAfricaGrasslands

Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.

Names around the world

简体中文
非洲牛箱头蛙
繁體中文
非洲牛箱頭蛙
Tiếng Việt
Ếch yêu tinh

Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.

Sources and how we check

We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.

The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.

The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.

This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.

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