Devastating Death of King — Secrets revealed!
By Megan Mak
Many people have been wondering what happened to Robert ‘Bob’ Baratheon, the well-known pet frog of RCHK. We have now gathered more information regarding this topic. Bob was gifted to Renaissance College Hong Kong (RCHK) sometime in December 2023. On December 16, 2024, Robert ‘Bob’ Baratheon, more commonly known as Bob the Frog or King Bob, lost his will to live. Bob was just over a year and a half old when he passed, as he was born on November 1st, 2023. He was found lying stiff and still in Ms Mel’s house. When he was found, he had experienced rigor mortis, which is the stiffening of the body after death.
In an interview with Ms Mel, a teacher librarian and the caretaker of Bob, on the 19th of May, 2025, she mentioned that Bob slowly got too cold in the library. Although she brought him extra pee pads and towels, Bob still shivered, and slowly, he passed away. Because the environment in the library was also quite noisy, it likely caused Bob some stress. “Bob died in my home, and I got up one morning and lifted the towel, and he was lying awfully stiff and still, and so I had to give him a little poke, and he had experienced rigor mortis and was really quite stiff, so it was apparent he had passed.” Ms Mel said.
“We were already quite worried, so I wasn’t particularly shocked.” Ms Kim, teacher-librarian and caretaker of Bob, said. Ms Kim also claimed that during the coming weeks of his passing, he stopped eating as much, and it would take Ms Mel and her roughly 1 hour to get Bob to eat extremely small amounts of food. In addition, Ms Kim and Ms Mel said they did research on Bob’s breed (Pac-Man frogs), and they claimed that Pac-Man frogs are known for starving themselves when they’re too stressed.
Katelyn LI, 7.2 student, mentioned that “Uhm, I thought he was really cute. So, I kind of… In a way, I kind of worshipped him.” Claire LEONARD, another 7.2 student, claimed that she also worshipped Bob. “Ever since I found out about him, in like Year 6, I felt a very strong admiration and respect for him, uhm, so, yeah, I thought he was like, the most adorable thing in the world, and I don’t, I don’t, yeah, I just loved him,” Claire said.
Additionally, 7.2 student Jiayan DENG said she didn’t know about Bob’s death until her friend informed her about his death. However, Jiayan didn’t fully believe that Bob was dead since she thought it was a joke. Jiayan realised that Bob was actually dead when she went to the library and saw that his tank was empty.
An image taken by Katelynn LI, 7.2 on 19/5/25 of Bob’s Plague (located in the third
floor secondary library)
Although Ms Kim and Ms Mel love frogs, they are too heartbroken to get another one for the school, as it may seem like ‘replacing Bob’, so they decided not to get another frog. Plus, Ms Kim doesn’t think that the school is a good environment for frogs to live in. The school environment may not be humid enough for Pac-Man frogs (Bob’s breed), as the humidity levels of their terrarium should range from 50% to 80%. For some environments to be that humid (e.g., the RCHK library), caretakers would need to spray water mist to make the terrarium more humid. A good environment for Pac-Man frogs is places where the temperature during the daytime should be 24-29°C (75-85°F) and 18-24°C (65-75°F) during the night.
However, since there’s air conditioning in school during school hours, it is quite likely that temperatures are lower than 24-29°C. During the night, the aircon is likely turned off, as there’s nobody in school. Therefore, there is a chance that the temperatures are higher than 24-29°C, especially during the Summer. Also, when Pac-Man frogs stop eating, it could mean several things. Those things include estivation (a type of dormancy), stress, changes in diet, or even illness.