February 17, 2026
Frogs, rabbits, chaos
A Brief History of Xenopus
From rabbits and frogs to pee sticks — the wild pregnancy test past the internet is fighting over
TLDR: A history piece explains how African clawed frogs once served as fast pregnancy tests before today’s simple pee sticks. Commenters split between celebrating clever old-school science, cringing at animal use and bioethics, and debating whether spreading lab frogs worldwide had nasty ecological fallout—memes and pedants included.
The internet has discovered the wild, weird history of pregnancy tests—and the comments are louder than a frog chorus. The article walks through how doctors once injected urine into mice, then rabbits, before the African clawed frog—aka Xenopus—hopped in as the faster, reusable lab star. Cue a flood of reactions: science fans are yelling “iconic!” while others say “uh, the frog era wasn’t cute.” A top thread argues over whether shipping Xenopus worldwide helped spread amphibian disease, with eco-minded users linking to African clawed frog and critics pushing back that the piece was about pregnancy testing, not ecology. Meanwhile, pedants gleefully correct everyone: “The ‘rabbit died’ line? The rabbit always died—because it was dissected.”
The other big split: awe vs. ick. Some commenters applaud clever, low-tech biology (“18 hours to eggs? That’s brilliant!”), while others recoil at the throwback methods—especially the 19th‑century scientist who injected himself with, yes, testicle juice. Meme-makers have a new favorite format: side-by-side of a frog laying eggs and a modern stick test reading “hCG” (that’s the pregnancy hormone, human chorionic gonadotropin), captioned “from frogs to sticks.” Nostalgia posts celebrate Xenopus’ legacy in labs; skeptics clap back that modern lateral flow tests made animal testing obsolete—and thank goodness. It’s part biology lesson, part ethics brawl, all extremely online.
Key Points
- •Early pregnancy detection methods were unreliable until endocrinology enabled bioassays.
- •Aschheim and Zondek’s 1928 mouse-based test identified pregnancy via ovarian changes.
- •Maurice Friedman’s 1931 rabbit test became a U.S. standard but required invasive confirmation.
- •Hogben’s work with Xenopus laevis led to a rapid, non-lethal frog-based pregnancy bioassay.
- •Modern tests use hCG detection via lateral flow devices, eliminating the need for animal assays.