As requested here are some dart frog pictures for you. Two of them are from the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, and the rest are frogs you should recognize my and Aunt Bear's house.
Enjoy,
Uncle Jason
This is a Bumble-Bee Dart Frog (Dendrobates lucomales) photographed at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.
Above is the bronze spotted form of the Green and Black Dart Frog (Dendrobates auratus). This one is a male; you can tell by the large toe pads on his front feet.
A group of my Green and Blacks at feeding time. This group is of the nominate Panamanian type of the species; which simply means they are the typical type native to Panama.Here is a video of two Green and Blacks courting. The larger one is the female and she is dancing for the smaller one (the male) as part of their mating behavior. If the male finds the dance acceptable he will lead the female to a spot he has selected for her to lay her eggs. Typical a protected spot in a leaf axle or under a dead leaf.
After the eggs hatch the male takes them on his back and carries the tadpoles to small pools of water. If you look closely you can see a tadpole curled up on the back of this male.
This is a Green and Black tadpole that has sprouted legs. Soon it will lose its tail and crawl out of the water. The light colored areas on its legs are where its green patterning is starting to develop.
This is a Bicolor Dart Frog (Phyllobates bicolor) from a pair I used to keep. In the wild this is one of the most poisonous species of dart frog. Nothing to worry about here though; Dart frogs get their poisons from the insects they eat and this little guys got a diet of non-poisonous fruit flys and springtails. Yummy!
These are two Terrible Dart Frogs (Phyllobates terribilis) photographed at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. The one in the front is the typicall yellow form and the lighter one in the back is the "mint" form. In the wild these are the most toxic of the dart frogs, and the where the "dart" comes from in dart frog. They are commonly used by native hunters to poison tip the ends of the blow darts they use to hunt with.
