Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Halloween Frog

Back in high school, my brother and I had a few tree frogs in a large vivarium filled with all sorts of twisted branches and tropical plants. A Garden of Eden. Frogtopia. To my father, a dog is the only pet a human should own, so tiny frogs confused him. But he tried to take an interest.

Late summer nights, when we were asleep in bed, we'd hear him yell "Boys! Boys! Wake up!"
We'd scramble downstairs and he'd be pointing to the corner of the ceiling.
Almost always the same dialogue:

Dad: "There's a moth up there in the corner."
Boys: "Where?"
Dad: "There. Get it and feed it to your bugs."
Boys: "Frogs."


Cool Halloween-colored poison dart frog.
He could have come in handy back then.

5 comments:

Chris 'Frog Queen' Davis said...

Ah, you had frogs as a kid? I knew I liked you for a reason :D

Cheers!

Anonymous said...

Poison dart frogs....so cute but so deadly.

My kind of pet. :)

Anonymous said...

@Pumpkinrot
This is too funny!

I breed poison dart frogs for a living and actually breed the species you have pictured, which is Dendrobates leucomelas.

I try to get around to reading your blog but I don't get to do it as often as I would like.

I find it very random to just check the blog out today expecting not to see a dart frog as I see every day. Just wild.
Let me know if you want to buy some!

@Jay's Shadow
Dendrobates leucomelas is actually not deadly. Its a common misconception that all dart frogs are deadly. Only three species are poisonous enough to harm/kill a human. (Phyllobates terribilis, P.bicolor, and P. aurotaenia)
The toxicity is solely based on their wild diet as well. Captive specimens are not poisonous. I have Phyllobates terribilis (Yellow & Mint morphs), the most poisonous animal on earth, in my collection but they are completely harmless due to being fed a captive diet.

~Paul

Rot said...

Paul,
Thanks so much for posting.
I never knew that about captive species being harmless.

Envious of your collection : )

Anonymous said...

Rot,

Yup. The wild dart frogs eat high concentrations of native ants and mites that are full of toxic alkaloids.
There is bio research being done on another species/complex (Epipedobates anthonyi & E. tricolor....which I breed anthonyi)
That can be used to synthesize a pain killer much more potent than any opiate being used currently.

Let me know if you are ever interested in setting up a vivarium for some dart frogs. I can trade you some frogs for a scarecrow. ;)

~Paul

ps For an awesome "Halloween dart frog" I want to get in the future look for Adelphobates galactonotus (Orange morph) in a image search.