Habitat and Range:
These
dudes live in middle to South America, in countries like Guyana, the south of
Colombia, the north of Brazil, and Venezuela.
They like to live in humid and/or wet areas, such as the moist locales
of rainforest trees and their trunks, drippy soil and stones.
Mating, Offspring and the joys thereof
The females of this species
reach sexual joy and ability at 2 years of age; they enjoy breeding in the
months of February and March, and only in the raining season. Right after sunrise and before sunset are the
most intense “passion” moments, as they call the most aggressively during this
time. The males chirp and trill to get
the ladies to come, and so unlike many species, it is the females that vie for
the attention of the males, and have
to compete, instead of the other way around.
She can lay up to 1000 clutches of eggs (a clutch is 2-12 eggs) in one
breeding season.
Feeding Needs and Diet
These guys eat ants,
termites, beetles, spiders, tadpoles, giant damselfly nymphs, and other dart
frog tadpoles—gross. But whatever,
right, food is food?
Size
Adults can get up to 1.57 inches,
which is large for poison dart frogs.
Their average weight is 0.11 ounces.
Females are larger than males.
Their life span is 5-7 in the wild, though the record for captivity is
actually 20.5 years.
Role in Ecosystem
These
guys have a role in the ecosystem by keeping down bugs (most importantly
poisonous ones) down to a minimum. In
fact, the only reason these frogs are poisonous is because they eat poison
ants.
Relatives
They
are in the family Dendrobatidae, which means they are related to all other
poison dart frogs, including the Ranitomeya and Andinobates
