AMPHIBIA: ANURA: DENDROBATIDAE: Phyllobates

Phyllobates terribilis Author and date

Golden dart-poison frog

Photo & text by Dr. Robert Sprackland.

DANGEROUSLY POISONOUS

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Natural History: Though many frogs are called "poison dart frogs," only three species of Phyllobates are actually used for dart poisons. The golden dart-poison frog produces the most powerful poison of any land animal. It is called tetradotoxin (TTX), the same chemical originally identified in some tissues of puffer fishes. A great evolutionary mystery concerns this poison: it is found, with precisely the same chemical structure, in such disparate animals as puffer fishes, California newts, Central American dart-poison frogs, and a New Guinea bird, the pitohui.

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