Poison dart frog is the common name of a group of frogs which live in the tropical areas of Central and South America.
These amphibians are called dart frogs due to Native Americans in the area who used their toxic secretions to poison the tips of blow darts to hunt birds and other prey.
Though there are over 170 species of poison dart frogs, only four have been documented as being used for this purpose.
Most poison dart frogs display aposematic patterns, which warn of their toxicity. It’s their colourful way of telling would-be predators, “I’m poisonous, don’t eat me!”
Other aposematic animals include skunks, with their powerful scent glands, and cuttlefish, whose Wowzerful colour-changing skin warns predators that it’s one of the most poisonous creatures in the sea.
A lot of poison dart frogs are very tiny, with some barely reaching a size of 1.5 cm (0.6 in) in length. There are a few, however, that can grow up to 6 cm (2.4 in) in length.
While most frogs are nocturnal, such is not the case with these colourful diurnal critters, which means they’re mostly active during the day, just like us!
Poison dart frogs prefer to live in the rainforest, but they can also be found in other tropical environments such as marshes, swamps, savanna grasslands and farm land.
Because the climate in which they live is so humid, they are able to survive while living away from permanent bodies of water. And while they do spend some of their time in trees, they typically remain close to the forest floor.
Poison dart frogs are carnivorous, and employ their opportunistic hunting techniques to dine on small insects such as fruit flies, termites, crickets and ants, as well as some smaller species of beetles.
Their long, sticky tongues zap out in a blink of an eye to capture and reel in their fast-moving prey.
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