Phyllobates

Phyllobates is a genus of poison dart frogs native to Central and South America, from Nicaragua to Colombia. There are 3 different Colombian species of Phyllobates, considered highly toxic species due to the poison they contain in the wild.

Phyllobates
P. terribilis
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Anura
Family: Dendrobatidae
Subfamily: Dendrobatinae
Genus: Phyllobates
Duméril and Bibron, 1841
Species

6, see text

Phyllobates contains the most poisonous species of frog, the golden poison frog (P. terribilis). They are typical of the poison dart frogs, in that all species have bright warning coloration (aposematism), and have varying degrees of toxicity. Only species of Phyllobates are used by natives of South American tribes as sources of poison for their hunting darts. The most toxic of the many poisonous alkaloids these frogs contain (in glands in their skin) is batrachotoxin, alongside a wide variety of other toxic compounds. Some populations of Phyllobates lugubris in Central America are not known to be toxic.[1]

Taxonomy

Phyllobates (Ancient Greek for "leaf climber") used to contain many of the species which are now within the genus Ranitomeya.[2] However, it now just contains those six members within the Phyllobates bicolor species group. These are:

Group Image Common name Scientific name Distribution
P. lugubris species group Lovely poison frog Phyllobates lugubris (Schmidt, 1857) southeastern Nicaragua through Costa Rica to northwestern Panama
Golfodulcean poison frog Phyllobates vittatus (Cope, 1893) Costa Rica.
P. bicolor species group black-legged poison frog Phyllobates bicolor (Duméril and Bibron, 1841) Chocó area in western Colombia
Kokoe Poison Frog Phyllobates aurotaenia (Boulenger, 1913) Pacific coast of Colombia
Phyllobates sp. aff. aurotaenia [3]
Golden poison frog Phyllobates terribilis (Myers, Daly, and Malkin, 1978) Pacific coast of Colombia.

All these different species within the genus exhibit a diversity in color. Some examples are, P. terribilis, with color morphs of "mint", "yellow", and "orange". P. vittatus, another example, is always black as a ground color, but can show yellow stripes, orange stripes, red stripes,(stripes of all colors can be seen in two forms, narrow- and wide-banded) and turquoise, green, or blue legs, etc. The bicolor dart frog (Phyllobates bicolor) can range from yellow to orange, from black legs to green legs, to almost a uniform color of any of the aforementioned color morphs. P. aurotaenia specimens are yellow-banded or orange. They are always smaller than P. vittatus, and beyond locality, this is the best way to differentiate between the two in the field or in the hobby.

Source of toxin

The toxic alkaloid batrachotoxin is only present in frogs found in the wild; after extended captivity, they lose their toxin, indicating that they acquire it (or metabolize it) from their natural diet; this alkaloid has been found in Papuan beetle species in the family Melyridae, and other related genera can be found in Colombia and other areas where Phyllobates are found.[4]

See also

References
Wikispecies has information related to Phyllobates.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Phyllobates.
  1. Daly, J.W. (1995). The chemistry of poisons in amphibian skin. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 92: 9-13.
  2. Stefan Nilsson (2004), The Frog Prince-Royalty or Hallucination? Poisons of the Amphibian Skin (PDF), Bioscience Explained
  3. "Google Translate". google.com.
  4. Dumbacher, J. P.; Wako, A.; Derrickson, S. R.; Samuelson, A.; Spande, T. F.; Daly, J. W. (2004). "Melyrid beetles (Choresine): A putative source for the Batrachotoxin alkaloids found in poison-dart frogs and toxic passerine birds". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 101 (45): 15857–15860. Bibcode:2004PNAS..10115857D. doi:10.1073/pnas.0407197101. PMC 528779. PMID 15520388.
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