Oophaga lehmanni

The red-banded poison frog or Lehmann's poison frog (Oophaga lehmanni) is a frog.  It lives in Colombia on the west side of the Andes mountains.

Body
The adult male and female frogs are about 31-36 mm long from nose to rear end. The frog's skin is smooth. It can come in three different colors: The skin of the frog's back is dark brown or black, but the stripes on its back and belly can be red, orange or yellow. The adult male frog has silver color on the ends of its toes.

This frog has colors to show other animals that want to eat it that it is poisonous. It becomes poisonous because of the food it eats. Frogs that human beings keep as pets cannot get this food, so they are not poisonous.

Home
This frog lives in rainforests in low places and on hills. It lives in the dead leaves on the ground. Sometimes people see it outside forests, but not far outside. People have seen this frog between 600 and 900 meters above sea level.

Young
The female frog lays about five eggs at a time. She lays the eggs on the dead leaves on the ground in the forest.  The eggs hatch after about fifteen days. Then the female frog carries the tadpoles to bromeliad plants that have water in their leaves.  She puts the tadpoles in the water. The female frog lays eggs that will not hatch for the tadpoles to eat.

Danger
Scientists believe this frog is in big danger of dying out because people catch it to sell as a pet. People building farms to survive, people building farms to grow illegal plants, and people cutting down trees to get wood to build with can kill the bromeliad plants that the frogs need to grow tadpoles.

This frog lives in at least two protected parks, Río Anchicaya Reserve and Farallones de Cali National Park. There is a dam that makes electricity in Farallones de Cali National Park. Sometimes frogs die when humans beings let water out of the dam. But the guards that watch the dam also stop other people from catching the frog to sell.

References

Category:Frogs of South America