Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Phyl­lo­bates bi­color in­hab­its the trop­i­cal rain forests of Cen­tral and South Amer­ica. The Choco In­di­ans re­port find­ing them most com­monly in the Pa­cific River area of West­ern Colom­bia (Na­tional Aquar­ium in Bal­ti­more, 1987).

• Biogeographic Regions
• neotropical
  • native

Habi­tat

Phyl­lo­bates bi­color are in­hab­i­tants of the trop­i­cal rain forests. They live colo­nially on the for­est floor, often near small streams. They do well in the moist, humid con­di­tions that the rain­forests pro­vide. The tem­per­a­ture rarely falls below 80 de­grees Fahren­heit and the min­i­mal an­nual rain­fall is about 80 inches. Some areas may re­cieve as much as 400 inches of rain per year. This con­stant warmth and rain­fall keep the habi­tat of Phyl­lo­bates bi­color green all year long (Na­tional Aquar­ium of Bal­ti­more, 1987).

• Terrestrial Biomes
• rainforest

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Phyl­lo­bates bi­color is typ­i­cally golden-yel­low in color and has black flecks on its hind legs. How­ever, the color pat­tern varies widely. All of the poi­son-dart frogs have very bright apose­matic col­oration. This is used as a de­fense mech­a­nism to warm po­ten­tial preda­tors of there ex­treme tox­i­c­ity. These skin tox­ins are pro­duced by spe­cial poi­son glands which are scat­tered all over the an­i­mal's body (Na­tional Aquar­ium in Bal­ti­more, 1987). Phyl­lo­bates bi­color has ter­mi­nal discs on its dig­its that allow them to climb well in shrubs and up mossy tree trunks (Mat­ti­son, 1987). Un­like males of most frog species, which are smaller than the fe­males, male poi­son-dart frogs are rel­a­tively the same size when com­pared to the fe­males (Bad­ger et al, 1995).

• Other Physical Features
• ectothermic
• bilateral symmetry

De­vel­op­ment

• Development - Life Cycle
• metamorphosis

Re­pro­duc­tion

Most pop­u­la­tions of Phyl­lo­bates bi­color breed con­tin­u­ously througout the rainy sea­son, some every other month or even more fre­quently. In order to at­tract a fe­male, the male will sit on a leaf and call by trilling or buzzing. This may go on for sev­eral days. Once a fe­male is at­tracted, the mat­ing pair must find a suit­able lo­ca­tion to lay their eggs. In some species, the male will se­lect a lo­ca­tion for the eggs prior to ob­tain­ing a mate. They are usu­ally laid in a moist place, such as, in the leaf lit­ter, under rocks, or even on cer­tain rain for­est plants (Na­tional Aquar­ium in Bal­ti­more, 1987). Phyl­lo­bates bi­color have ex­ter­nal fer­til­iza­tion with the male fer­til­iz­ing the eggs as the fe­male de­posits them. Dur­ing am­plexus, the male has to clasp his mate under her chin in­stead of around her waist due to the sim­i­lar­i­ties in size be­tween the males and fe­males (Bad­ger et al, 1995). The fe­male lays from 4-30 eggs in a jelly-like mass, which keeps them moist. Then, they are usu­ally gau­rded by ei­ther par­ent until they are ready to hatch. At this point in their de­vel­op­ment, water is re­quired. The at­tend­ing par­ent will squat in the gelati­nous mass and allow the young to wrig­gle up his/her legs and onto their back. The lar­vae may re­main on the adult's back for a few min­utes or for sev­eral hours. The young are firmly at­tached by a mu­cous se­cre­tion which is only bro­ken down by the im­mer­sion in water (Mat­ti­son, 1987). The par­ent will take the tad­poles to a suit­able body of water where they are able to con­tinue their de­vel­op­ment. This may con­sist of a pud­dle in a tree hole or a water hold­ing plant such as a brome­laid or the leaf axils of palms or aroids. It takes about 3 weeks for the tad­poles to com­plete meta­mor­pho­sis. After this time, the young will re­turn back to their nat­ural ar­bo­real or ter­res­trial habi­tat (Bad­ger et al, 1995).

• Key Reproductive Features
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)

Be­hav­ior

Phyl­lo­bates bi­color is ac­tive dur­ing the day and are very lively for­agers. They move in short hops and are rarely still for more than a sec­ond or two (Mat­ti­son, 1987). Dur­ing breed­ing sea­son, when the male Phyl­lo­bates bi­color is call­ing for his mate, if an­other male re­sponds, the call­ing male will at­tempt to evict him from the area using ag­gres­sive force. They will en­gage in rit­u­al­ized wrestling bouts with one an­other typ­i­cally while on their hind legs (Bad­ger et al, 1995).

• Key Behaviors
• motile

Food Habits

Phyl­lo­bates bi­color is pri­mar­ily car­niv­o­rous. Adults feed on ants, ter­mites, tiny bee­tles, and other small leaf lit­ter arthro­pods. They cap­ture their prey using their long, sticky re­tractable tongue. The young tad­poles may eat each other if placed to­gether in a small area, but mostly they feed on in­sect lar­vae, de­tri­tis, and on un­fer­til­ized eggs left by a vis­it­ing fe­male (Na­tional Aquar­ium in Bal­ti­more, 1987).

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Na­tive peo­ples in Colom­bia col­lect brightly col­ored frogs and use their poi­so­nous skin se­cre­tions to coat the ends of hunt­ing ar­rows. This method, first re­ported by British naval cap­tain, Charles Stu­art Cochrane, is highly ef­fec­tive in hunt­ing jaguars, mon­keys, birds, and small game an­i­mals. These skin tox­ins are of great in­ter­est to med­ical re­searchers be­cause of their re­mark­able po­tency. The ba­tra­chotox­ins se­creted by Phyl­lo­bates bi­color are es­pe­cially valu­able for med­ical sci­ence and the study of anes­thet­ics, mus­cle re­lax­ants, car­diac stim­u­lants, and the con­trol of rapid or ir­reg­u­lar heart­beats (Bad­ger et al, 1995).

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Sci­en­tists be­lieve that the skin tox­ins of Phyl­lo­bates bi­color are so toxic that .0000004 ounces may be enough to kill a human being. Tox­ins from these frogs work quickly, at­tack­ing the nerves and mus­cles. Nerve cells can no longer trans­mit im­pulses and mus­cle cells re­main in an ac­ti­vated, con­tracted state. The re­sult is death by res­pi­ra­tory or mus­cu­lar paral­y­sis (Bad­ger et al, 1995).

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

The pet trade and the de­struc­tion of the trop­i­cal rain forests are lead­ing to a de­cline in the Den­dro­batids such as Phyl­lo­bates bi­color. When the rain forests dis­ap­pear, so do the an­i­mals that in­habit it (Na­tional Aquar­ium in Bal­ti­more, 1987). One of the most spell­bind­ing ex­hibits of live poi­son-dart frogs frogs in the United States is lo­cated at the Na­tional Aquar­ium in Bal­ti­more, Mary­land. Her­petol­o­gists there have had suc­cess breed­ing as many as 20 species, but they have also en­coun­tered a po­ten­tial prob­lem. Poi­son-dart frogs that are born in cap­tiv­ity do not se­crete skin tox­ins. Sci­en­tists aren't sure why, but they spec­u­late that the ab­sence of cer­tain bac­te­ria in the en­vi­ron­ment or per­haps some­thing miss­ing in their diet may be the rea­son (Bad­ger et al, 1995). The rain for­est ex­hibit at the Na­tional Aquar­ium ex­ists to make the pub­lic aware of the di­ver­sity of life found within the rain forests through­out the world. Hope­fully, this aware­ness will cre­ate a de­sire to help pro­tect the habi­tat of species like Phyl­lo­bates bi­color (Na­tional Aquar­ium in Bal­ti­more, 1987).

• IUCN Red List

  Near Threatened
  More information

• CITES

  Appendix II

Con­trib­u­tors

Erika Olson (au­thor), Michi­gan State Uni­ver­sity, James Hard­ing (ed­i­tor), Michi­gan State Uni­ver­sity.

Ref­er­ences

Bad­ger, D., J. Nether­ton. 1987. Frogs. Min­nesota: Voyageur Press.

Mat­ti­son, C. 1987. Frogs and Toads of the World. New York: Facts on File Inc..

Na­tional Aquar­ium in Bal­ti­more, .. 1987. "Poi­son Dart Frog: Amaz­ing Am­phib­ians" (On-line). Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 1, 1999 at http://​www.​aqua.​org/​animals/​species/​prpdfrog.​htm.