So who's going to tell them that the frog they're holding
secretes some of the most deadly toxins on Earth?
I hate to be the bearer of bad news
but you might want to leave these psychedelic amphibians alone.
"I just...
what am I supposed to do now?"
While some animals sting or bite,
a dart frog’s poison is simply on their skin.
Just one, innocent touch can kill you.
Poison dart frogs are only 2.5 cm (1 in) in size,
but their kaleidoscopic skin colors make them hard to miss.
From bright blues
to rousing reds, they know how to stand out.
These frogs have evolved their aposematic coloration
as a fair warning to anything that might want to
mess with a dart frog, telling them to back off.
They’re the fashion icons of rainforests from Brazil
to Costa Rica.
The frogs secrete a milky substance
that contains batrachotoxin.
It’s a deadly neurotoxin that attacks the nervous system.
If you brush up against a dart frog, you go from paralysis
to cardiac arrest in a matter of minutes.
The poison's chemical makeup stops your muscles
from communicating with your brain.
Quick, someone’s got to tell all the princesses out there
that this is one frog they shouldn’t kiss.
One smooch would be the kiss of death.
Even an amount of poison as small as two grains of salt
is enough to kill a 68 kg (150 lb) person.
No wonder some Amazonian hunters use
dart frog secretions on the ends of weapons.
It pretty much ensures a kill.
In particular, one golden poison dart frog
has enough secretions to kill 10 people.
This species lives in a Colombian rainforest
and is the most dangerous dart frog of them all.
But dart frogs aren’t born covered in deadly poison,
ready to kill anyone who dares come near.
Unlike most dangerous amphibians who
create their poison internally,
dart frogs acquire theirs through their diet.
They eat an ant species which contains
toxic alkaloid molecules,
and they don’t let any part of this meal go to waste.
Poison dart frogs store the molecules in their glands
and synthesize them into poison.
After all, I guess you are what you eat.
"It's time to put the ranch away."
Can you believe that despite all this,
some people keep these lethal leapers as pets?
Because their poison comes from what they eat,
you can neutralize a dart frog
by feeding it a strict diet of non-toxic insects.
It's safe to handle a poison dart frog
if it only eats bugs like fruit flies and crickets.
But if you live in Hawaii or British Columbia, Canada,
you’d be breaking the law if you kept a dart frog as a pet.
These laws protect poison dart frogs
and society at large.
I don’t even want to imagine what would happen
if poisonous frogs overran our world.
But due to deforestation,
poison dart frogs are in danger of extinction.
Their habitat is slipping out from under their
tiny webbed feet.
The humid environment is crucial to their survival
yet swathes of rainforest are slashed every year.
Life’s rough out there if you’re just a little frog,
even if the skin you’re in has the power to kill.
There’s another cute, colorful and deadly amphibian
lurking through the treetops.
You can meet the boomslang in this video.
Using their brightly colored bodies
to warn predators
and secreting super potent toxins
are what poison dart frogs do.
And that’s what makes them Crazy Creatures.