Sketch of the Day: Poison Dart Frog
Isn't he a beaut! I love how this colorful little guy grips the sides of the book. He's a Lehmann's poison dart frog (Oophaga lehmanni), also known as the red-banded poison dart frog. It can hybridize with the Harliquin poison dart frog (Oophaga histrionicus), so there is some debate if they are even a separate species. Lehmann's are native to the submontane tropical rainforests of South America, specifically Columbia. These frogs belong to the Dendrobatidae family and will carry their eggs up into the canopy of trees to deposit them in the pools of water in epiphytic plants like bromeliads.
Lehmann's poison dart frogs are an example of an aposematic species, which advertise their toxicity with their bright colors. Aposematic signals are beneficial for both the predator and prey, since both avoid potential harm. For poison dart frogs the toxins take the form of lipophilic alkaloids. The alkaloids secreted by the frog are not produced by the frog, rather are sequestered from the invertebrates it eats such as ants and centipedes. There are 28 structural classes of alkaloids from poison frogs, some of which are potent pain killers (200 times more potent than morphine!).
International Union for Conservation of Nature (ICUN) lists this beuty as critically endangered (http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/55190/0).
