the.com/poison frog
Nature's warning label, evolved into neon skin and a death wish for predators.
means A small, often brilliantly colored tropical frog that stores or produces toxins in its skin as a defense against predators.
from The name is purely descriptive, built from 'poison' (via French and Latin from 'potio,' a drink or potion — originally just a liquid dose, which could kill or cure) plus 'frog' (an old Germanic word for the hopping amphibian). The vivid coloring these frogs wear is itself a kind of linguistic shortcut nature got to first: aposematism, or warning coloration, which human namers simply translated into the bluntest possible label.
- stolen toxicity
- they get poison from eating toxic ants and mites, not their own glands
- captivity flaw
- zoo-bred ones lose toxicity entirely because diet creates the poison
- color code
- brighter colors generally mean deadlier skin, predators learn fast
- golden killer
- one golden poison frog carries enough toxin to kill ten humans