Demonic Poison Frog
Minyobates steyermarki
Demonic Poison Frog
Minyobates steyermarki
CC goal
20 breeders
As at 05/2024
CC goal
110 animals
As at 05/2024
CC goal
20 breeders
As at 05/2024
CC goal
110 animals
As at 05/2024
“Lost world”: In 1912, the famous British writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published his novel about an expedition to a mesa in the South American jungle, so remote that dinosaurs could have survived on it until the present. Large, mysterious mesas, the Tepuis, rise from the rainforest plains between Orinoco and Amazon. On one of them, the Cerro Yapacana, dinosaurs have not survived – but something else has: a small, reddish shimmering frog, genetically so extraordinary that it has been declared a separate species from its poison dart frog kin.
Poison dart frogs exemplify warning colors
Poison dart frogs have an extremely effective poison. The Golden Poison Frog (Phyllobates terribilis) is considered the most toxic vertebrate in the world.
The animals warn predators about their poison with their eye-catching colors, like this black and yellow poison frog, Dendrobates leucomelas
This Strawberry Poison Frog (Oophaga pumilio) uses the same warning technique as the Demonic Poison Frog: the bright red and black color of its skin.
The Ranitomeya amazonica is anything but inconspicuous
The Dyeing Poison Frog (Dendrobates tinctorius) sometimes shocks predators with a bright blue color …
… and other times goes for a bright lemon yellow. Completely unconcerned, it hops through the forest during the day, trusting in the deterrent effect of its colors.
Tiny but deadly
The Demonic Poison Frog is tiny. The females only grow to about 16 millimeters in length, and the males are even smaller. The frogs have small black spots on their otherwise red skin. This warning color is supposed to call attention to their poisonous skin, as Demonic Poison Frogs are a type of Poison Dart Frog. They are so dangerous that they can fearlessly hop around in broad daylight. And they take advantage of this power: great numbers of them crowd together, jumping around among the puya bromeliads, which grow abundantly in their forest.
The threat of mining
The stuff dreams are made of – and the Demonic Poison Frog’s nightmare
The Tepui landscape by the Orinoco river is unfortunately not a lost world. Miners search for gold in the Cerro Yapacana
The mining in the Amazon basin hardly resembles the old gold rush fantasy
The mining companies are destroying large parts of the rainforest with their heavy machinery
Chemicals that leave behind toxic wastewater lakes are used in the search for gold.
This abandoned gold mining area in the neighboring country Guayana leaves no room for frogs
Single Dads
The puya bromeliads are a home to the frogs and also play a significant role in their reproduction: the water that collects in their leaves serves as a nursery for the tadpoles once they are brought there. The parents mate and deposit their eggs in humid hiding places deep in the forest. While the larvae mature in their eggs, the male makes sure they do not dry out, and moistens them if necessary. When the tadpoles hatch, the male carries them, one by one, to a cute little bromeliad pool, where they then spend the rest of their time as larvae.
A small, reddish shimmering frog, genetically so extraordinary that it has been declared a separate species from its Poison Dart Frog kin.
Demonic Poison Frog © Benny Trapp, Frogs & Friends
Experts needed
The world of the Demonic Poison Frog is just ten square kilometers, and unfortunately it is by no means as forgotten as Sir Conan Doyle’s Tepui: At the Cerro Yapacana, gold is mined in an open pit. For this, parts of the forest are burned again and again. The chemicals used in the search for gold may be a ticking time bomb for the frogs. And the political crisis in Venezuela increases the risk of illegal activities. Therefore, it is high time to systematically breed this specimen in terrariums – which has already proven to be successful. The experts of Citizen Conservation are ready to get to work. This is no easy task, because the frogs reproduce slowly, lay few eggs and are hard to breed – a case for dedicated CC specialists.
For breeders
Basic information on biology and breeding
The Minyobates steyermarki is especially difficult to breed, so it should only be kept by experts and is therefore not yet freely accessible in the CC program. Basic information and breeding recommendations are still being developed and will be posted here soon.