These beautiful colors are warnings to potential predators that the frogs are poisonous. Other species, such as monarch butterflies, sport bright colors to advertise their toxicity. Several species of non-poisonous frogs evolved with similar coloring to avoid being eaten. Some scientists think that the reticulated pattern of the frogs also acts as camouflage among the forest shadows
Some poison dart frogs species include a number of conspecific color morphs that emerged as recently as 6,000 years ago. Therefore, species such as Dendrobates tinctorius, Oophaga pumilio, and O. granulifera can include color pattern morphs that can be interbred (colors are under polygenic control, while the actual patterns are probably controlled by a single locus). Differing coloration has historically misidentified single species as separate, and there is still controversy among taxonomists over classification.
Variation in predation regimens may have influenced the evolution of polymorphism in O. granulifera, while sexual selection appears to have contributed to differentiation among the Bocas del Toro populations of Oophaga pumilio.
Poison dart frogs, also called poison arrow frogs, are so named because
some Amerindian tribes have used their secretions to poison
their darts. Not all arrow frogs are deadly, and only three
species are very dangerous to humans. The most deadly species
to humans is the golden poison arrow frog (Phyllobates terribilis). Its poison, batrachotoxin, can
kill many small animals or humans. These frogs are found
in Colombia along the western slopes of the Andes. Arrow
frogs are not poisonous in captivity. Scientists believe
that these frogs gain their poison from a specific arthropod
and other insects that they eat in the wild. These insects
most likely acquire the poison from their plant diet.
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