Poison Dart Frogs And How They Kill You

Poison dart frogs are very colourful and very poisonous amphibians that can be found in the tropical forests ranging from Costa Rica down to Brazil.

The brightness of the colour is found to be strongly correlated to their toxicity (study). This means that the more poisonous they are, the brighter they are.

The less bright, toxic frogs are simply unpalatable to predators (digestive irritation, hallucinations) but the more toxic ones will outright kill them.

This adaptation is good as it warns the predators away from the frog and the frog itself gets to live another day.

Frog Poison and How It Kills You

These frogs secrete poisons from their skin glands that are fat and oil soluble (allopumiliotoxin 267A, batrachotoxin, epibatidine, histrionicotoxin, and pumiliotoxin 251D).

Let's look at one of these, the allopumiliotoxin and pumiliotoxins and how you would meet your demise if it got into your system.

This class of toxins is very deadly, it takes only 20 μg to kill a mouse.

These toxins affect the calcium channels in your muscles and interfere with their regular contraction (think heart muscle and the diaphraghm muscle). The result is partial paralysis and eventual death (see appendix at the bottom for a description of what a calcium channel is).

You will likely be conscious during the process, with your muscles seizing up, your heart rate slowing and the feeling of dread that comes with that. You will also have trouble taking in a breath because your diaphragm stops working. Overall, a very unpleasant way to go.

So think twice before trying to find that last uncontacted tribe in the Amazon.

Phyllobates terribilis (P. terribilis, the golden poison frog) is so toxic that there are confirmed reports that humans have been killed just by touching them. The average P. terribilis frog has enough poison to kill 10 to 20 humans.

Poison Dart Hunting

These toxins are stable. So stable that they can be removed from the frogs and then dabbed onto the tips of darts or arrows.

The darts after being constructed are kept in a quiver so that the hunter (and his family and tribe members) do not accidentally prick themselves.

The darts give a hunter quite a large edge in getting prey as this gives them the chance to just blow dart into an animal that is high up in a tree and then just wait for it to fall out and down to the ground.

Appendix: Calcium Channels

Per wikipedia:

A calcium channel is an ion channel which shows selective permeability to calcium ions.

This is basically describing the mechanism by which the cells in your body transmit electrical signals. The electricity is transmitted not by electrons like in your computer but by ions (i.e. charged atoms, in this case the atom is calcium).

Post Sources (best first)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_dart_frog#Toxicity_and_medicine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allopumiliotoxin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumiliotoxin

http://frogs.cc/the-blowguns-and-darts-that-use-frog-poison/

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/amphibians/group/poison-dart-frogs/

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150422-the-worlds-most-poisonous-animal

http://oddstuffmagazine.com/7-most-deadly-poisonous-frogs-through-out-the-globe.html