Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo - Animal Fact Sheet


POISON ARROW FROGS (Dendrabates aurauts, Dendrabates azureus, Dendrabates leucomelas)
Range:	Native to only Central and South American rainforests. one species has been introduced to Hawaii.
Habitat:	Most species are arboreal, or tree?dwellers, although some, like the ones on display, do live on the forest floor.
Diet:	Usual amphibian diet of small invertebrates in vast quantities, like fruit flies, aphids, etc., eggs and larva from other vertebrates are eaten as well.
Approx. Dimensions of Adult:
Lifespan:
Reproduction:	The female frog lays the eggs usually out to the water on a smooth, clean, moist surface, such as a leaf. One of the parents, usually the male, will remain on the area until the eggs hatch into tadpoles. The adult will carry the tadpole, in most cases, on his back to a small body of water, such as the base of a bromeliad plant. Often the female will visit the plant to lay infertile eggs for the tadpoles to eat while they change into frogs.
Poison arrow frogs occur in a bewildering array of colors and patterns. The colors are usually very brilliant, which serve the purpose of "flash colors" to warn predators of the toxins in the skin. They are typically very small, the smallest is less than half an inch long making him the smallest frog in the world. Recent research has the family broken up into six genera made up of over 100 species. Of these: D. auratus, D. lehmanni, D. histrionicus, D. azureus, and D. pumilio, all are easily breed in captivity except D. lehmanni or the red-and-black poison arrow frog, which even in the wild must have optimal conditions before it will breed. The common name of poison arrow, or poison dart frog came from the practice of South American Indians using the toxins in the skin to coat their darts for hunting. The frogs are often impaled and roasted to extract the toxins from the skin. Each one inch frog provides enough poison for about 15 arrows. The kokoi frog of Columbia secretes the most powerful poison known, called batrachotoxin. Only 1/100,000 of an ounce is necessary to kill a human. The poisons are now also being studied for medical uses, such as their muscle relaxing and neural message transmission properties.