Rain Forests and Cloud Forests

 

 Poison arrow frogs (genera Dendrobates and Phyllobates) are among the most colorful of all amphibians.Their skin contains a potent toxin strong enough to kill any predator, so they are bold frogs that are active throughout the day. They even sing out in the open in daylight, and so they can be photographed more easily than most frogs. I photographed the red one shown here, Dendrobates pumilio, in Costa Rica.

 

 

 

 

 

Photographing these frogs is no picnic even though they are rather unafraid. They only sang if I stayed absolutely motionless for a long time, keeping them in focus and ready to shoot. This would be hard anywhere, but in these wet tropical forests there are large numbers of mosquitoes, and I had to just let them bite if I wanted to stay still enough to get my picture. This was torture. The mosquitoes even went after the frogs, as you can see in the photo below.

 

 

 This poison arrow frog of the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica is Dendrobates auratus. It is much less common and much more shy than the red species. I never did manage to see one singing.

 

 

 

 

This is another species of poison arrow frog.

 

Rain Forests and Cloud Forests