Golden Poison Frog
The golden poison frog (Phyllobates terribilis) is a small, bright yellow frog of Colombia's Pacific coast rainforest and the most poisonous vertebrate known. A single frog carries enough batrachotoxin to kill several people. It is Endangered.
The golden poison frog (Phyllobates terribilis) is a small, bright yellow frog of Colombia's Pacific coast rainforest and the most poisonous vertebrate known. A single frog carries enough batrachotoxin to kill several people. It is Endangered.
🧬 Field Guide Specimen: Open Golden Poison Frog in the CRV Science Field Guide to log the specimen, see its place among the Tetrapoda lineages in the Cladogram Explorer, and test your recall in the Red List conservation game.
Batrachotoxin
The toxin locks sodium channels open in nerves and muscles, which can cause paralysis and cardiac arrest. Emberá people have traditionally rubbed their blowgun darts on the frogs. Like other poison frogs, it gets its toxins from its diet in the wild, probably from small beetles.
Immune to Its Own Poison
The frog's own sodium channels carry a mutation that makes them resistant to the toxin. See Rough-skinned Newt.
A Tiny Range
It lives in a small area of lowland forest threatened by logging and mining. See Dyeing Poison Dart Frog.
Golden Poison Frog at a Glance
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Scientific name | Phyllobates terribilis |
| Kingdom | Animalia |
| Phylum | Chordata |
| Class | Amphibia |
| Order | Anura |
| Family | Dendrobatidae |
| Field Guide group | Tetrapoda: Amphibia (Frogs, Salamanders & Caecilians) |
| Diagnostic feature (Field Guide) | Diurnal Colombian Pacific rainforest dweller only 5 cm long, dressed in uniform warning shades of bright yellow, orange, or mint green and secreting batrachotoxin alkaloids potent enough to block voltage-gated sodium channels. |
| IUCN Red List status | Endangered (EN), assessed 2017 |
| Toxin | Batrachotoxin |