Читать книгу Extreme Nature - Mark Carwardine - Страница 10

NAME	golden poison-dart frog Phyllobates terribilis
LOCATION	Pacific rainforests of Colombia, South America
ABILITY	producing the most deadly poison of any animal

© Chris Mattison/FLPA

This tiny frog uses toxic chemicals as a defence in its body and is therefore technically poisonous (venomous animals inject toxins via a weapon – a tail, fang, spine, spur or tooth). The toxin is effective only when the frog is attacked, and since the frog doesn’t want to be harmed, it sports a brilliant yellow or orange colour to warn predators of extreme danger.

In fact, this most poisonous of frogs is possibly the most poisonous animal in the world. The toxin is in its skin – you can die even by touching it – and there is enough in the skin of one animal to kill up to 100 people. Though the frog has been known to science only since 1978, inhabiting just one area in Colombia, the Chocó indians have known about it for generations, using its skin-gland secretions to poison their blowgun darts and kill animals in seconds.

The golden poison-dart frog gets most of its batrachotoxin (meaning frog poison) from other animals, probably small beetles, which in turn get it from plant sources. Captive-bred frogs, by comparison, never become toxic, presumably because they aren’t fed toxic insects. The frog is active in the day, having few predators except a snake, that has become immune to the toxin. Surprisingly, birds have been discovered in New Guinea with the same batrachotoxin in their skin and feathers. The likely link has been tracked down to a small beetle, similar to the New World beetles, which also contains batrachotoxins.