Over 170 species of small, often brilliantly coloured frogs from the rainforests of Central and South America, active by day. Their bright colours warn predators of skin toxins taken from a diet of ants, mites and termites. Only four species are known to have been used to poison blow darts.
Quick answers
What is it?Amphibian
Carnivore?Insects only
Dangerous?Yes
The golden poison frog carries enough toxin to kill ten to twenty people, but captive-bred frogs have almost none.
Domesticated?No
Awake when?Daytime
Hibernates?No
Kept as a pet?Sometimes
Kept by hobbyists, though collecting them for the pet trade has helped threaten some wild species.
Do people eat it?No
At a glance
Found inSouth America, Central America
HabitatRainforest
ColoursBlue, Yellow, Red
SizeTiny
LengthOften under 1.5 cm; a few up to 6 cm
Legs4
Covered inSkin
Lives alone
Lives for3–15 years
Can swim
Lays eggs
In the wild
- Where it lives
- Tropical Central and South America, from Nicaragua to Bolivia and Brazil; introduced to Hawaii.
- What it eats
- Small arthropods such as ants, mites, termites and centipedes.
Did you know
One golden frog carries enough toxin to kill ten people, but only in the wild: its poison comes from its diet.
After the eggs hatch, a parent carries the tadpoles one at a time on its back to water, sometimes a pool inside a bromeliad.
A painkiller 200 times as potent as morphine, epibatidine, comes from the skin of one species.
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