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The Most Toxic Creature on The Planet...
Photographer: Eric Isselée
...or so we thought! The most toxic creature on the planet was
thought to be the Golden Dart Frog, a little brightly colored amphibian
from a small area of rain forest on the Pacific coast of Colombia.
It is the native jungle tribes of
The frog is remarkably bright in color and can vary between bright orange, bright yellow, green and a paler green depending on their environment. Their bright colors are very purposeful and are intended to warn potential predators to the fact that they are poisonous, this strategy is known as aposematic coloration. Some frogs that are not in the slightest way poisonous can adopt similar bright colors to make out that they are of a toxic nature to fool predators into leaving them alone.
It must be said here that the Golden Poison Dart Frog is amongst the worlds most endangered species due to the fact that Columbian rain forests are fast disappearing due to such things like the devastation caused by bulldozers, earthmovers, logging trucks, the rising price of wood and the price of real estate itself. To continue though, this little frog that only measures a maximum of 2 inches long, produces a toxin that exudes out of its skin when threatened. The toxin is called a batrachotoxin and it enters the bloodstream ( absorbed through the skin, frogs don't bite! ) and the toxin attacks the nerves, specially around the heart, breathing becomes impossible and stressed asphyxiation then leads to cardiac arrest during coma, then death.  The poison from the skin of the Golden Dart Frog - P Terribilis has enough concentrated bio-toxins in it to kill tens of thousands of mice or hundreds of people. By comparison, the venom from the worlds most poisonous snake The Inland Taipan is estimated to be 10 to 20 times weaker than the toxin of this frog. In fact it only needs
two tenths of a single microgram of this frogs poison to be
The batrachotoxin, which is a steroid alkaloid based poison that the frog produces, does not naturally occur in nature, it was thought that it was only produced by the Golden Dart Frog.
The frog like all other
frogs stores the 'neat' toxin in its skin glands, similar to the sweat
glands of a person. The poison of most frogs tastes absolutely
diabolical to There is however...as always!...a snake, Liophis Epinephelus that is resistant to the frogs poison...resistant yes but not immune, as they also can die from the frogs toxin just as well, depending on how much of the toxin the frog has produced for its defence measures.
So who or what is totally immune? why the frog is of course! Through evolution the frog has adapted its nervous system cells to repel the poisons effects. It was recently discovered that when the Golden Dart was bred in captivity it had no ability to produce the toxin even though they were fed their usual staple diet of ants, crickets, termites and beetles, this lead scientists to believe that the frog ingested something special and unknown to science in its natural habitat, something that gave the frog the ability to sweat one of the most lethal substances known to man, but what on earth was it?
It was concluded that the frog must be eating an insect or other arthropod that made it poisonous which meant that this insect, whatever it was, was the true worlds most toxic living thing and not the frog. This meant that the frogs poison was just a bi-product. As stated it wasn't
known exactly what the frog was consuming to make it so toxic It was discovered that a bird from New Guinea could deliver the same toxins as the frog, and must have come about via something it ate. The contents of its stomach was analysed to find out and the remnants of a small winged beetle was discovered and under examination high concentrates of the same toxin as exuded by the frog was found making up the insect. The insect that is 5mm in length, is a winged beetle that belongs to the Melyridae family of insects and it could now be the most toxic living thing on the earth...pictured below.
More investigation on the initial findings have to be conducted, but it may be soon asserted that this beetle is one hell of a toxic bug ! Medical research has been exploring possible medicinal uses for the Golden Poison Dart Frog's toxin. They have already synthesized one of the toxins elements that could be transformed into a powerful painkilling drug or anaesthetic.
And to all the Ladies rambling out in
rain forests in Colombia, if you do find a frog, a nice bright yellow
pretty looking frog, then don't pick it up and kiss it, dying to know if
it will turn into a handsome prince...because " dying to know " would
become a reality!
Updated September 10th 2011 |
Columbia,
notably the Emberi tribe that use this frogs poison to coat the tips of
their blow-gun darts when they hunt animals in the jungle. This is
where the Golden Poison Dart Frog derives its name.
absolutely
fatal once in the bloodstream of a human and these little frogs can
exude up to 200 micrograms. Its tantamount to it being a little
yellow hopping weapon of mass destruction!
any predators trying to have a quick lunch and will invariably spit the
offending frog out well before biting into it. If the predator however
attempts to eat our little friend the Golden Dart Frog, it will be dead
seconds after its spits it out.
but recent investigations by Ornithologist John Dumbacher, of the
California Academy of Sciences along with John Daly, who is the
current world expert on Golden Poison Dart Frog chemistry found some
answers to the riddle...in New Guinea.
