Golden Poison Frog

📖 1. Overview

Measuring only 5.5 cm in body length, it is the most toxic vertebrate on Earth, carrying 1 mg of alkaloid neurotoxin (batrachotoxin) in its skin—enough to fatally poison 10–20 adults.

🌐 Wikipedia Summary Extract

The golden poison frog, also known as the golden dart frog or golden poison arrow frog, is a poison dart frog endemic to the rainforests of Colombia. The golden poison frog has become endangered due to habitat destruction within its naturally limited range. Despite its small size, this frog is considered to be the most poisonous extant animal species on the planet.

🦴 2. Anatomy & Morphology

Its vivid golden coloration serves as warning coloration (aposematism) that signals its lethal toxicity to predators, while a mutation in its own neural sodium channels prevents it from being poisoned by its own toxin.

🔍 3. Ecology & Behavior

Because the toxin is accumulated by eating specific toxic ants and beetles in the wild, individuals raised in laboratories on a diet of ordinary crickets develop no toxin at all.

🇰🇷 4. Connection to Korea

It is a classic example illustrating bioaccumulation of toxins through the food chain and evolutionary warning coloration.