Dendrobates auratus

The green poison frog, golden poison arrow frog, green poison arrow frog, green and golden poison arrow frog, gold arrow-poison frog, green and black poison dart frog, green and black poison frog, or green and black poison arrow frog (Dendrobates auratus) is a frog.  It lives in  Colombia, Costa Rica, and Colombia. People also brought them by accident to Oahu in Hawaii.

Body
The adult frog is about 25.0-39.5 mm long from nose to rear end and the adult female frog is 27.0-42.0 mm long. This frog has very bright colors. The skin of the frog's back is black with bright green marks. The skin of the frog's belly has yellow, blue, or green marks. Different frogs in this species can be different colors or patterns. Some have stripes and some have dots. Its nose is round.

Adult frogs eat ants.

Home

This frog is awake during the day. It lives on the ground and in trees in forests that are not too high above sea level. People also see the frog in places where the plants are growing back after being cut down and on cocoa farms. People have seen this frog between 0 and 1000 meters above sea level.

Young

The male frogs do not fight each other for good places but sometimes they do fight each other for other things. Female frogs fight each other for good male frogs.  One male frog can mate with six females each year.  The female frog lays eggs on dead leaves on the ground and the male frog watches them.  He takes away fungus and moves the eggs around so that they all get enough air and put water on them. She lays 3-13 eggs at a time. The eggs hatch into tadpoles 13-16 days later. Then the male frog carries the tadpoles on his back. He takes them to a water-filled hole in a tree or to water that does not move.  The tadpoles eat algae, insect young, animals that are too small to see, and other animals that are too small to see.  Sometimes older tadpoles eat younger tadpoles. They become frogs 39-89 days after that. The frogs become adults when they are 6-15 months old. The fewer tadpoles the male frog has, the faster the tadpoles grow.

Danger
Scientists say this frog is not in danger of dying out because it lives in a large place and there are many of them. It might be in some danger because people change the places where the frog lives to make farms, get wood to build with, and build towns. People also catch this frog to sell as a pet, especially the rare colors. It is easy for humans to raise this frog, so many of the pet frogs were never wild. Of all the frogs sold as pets from one country to another, 13% are this frog.

Scientists think that the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis could kill this frog, but they are not sure. B. dendrobatidis causes the fungal disease chytridiomycosis.

Many of the places the frog lives are protected parks.

References

Category:Frogs of South America