Bumble Bee Dart Frog

[guppiecat]

The bumble bee dart frog gets its name because, according to the math, it cannot fly.

Originally posted at stories.starmind.org.

Comments

[pameladean]

Do you happen to know why they're called dart frogs? When I was much younger I knew that some of them were poisonous; so I figured that people had put the poison on darts. But I doubt very much that that's it.

P.

[guppiecat]

Young you was actually right.

They're called poison dart and poison arrow frogs because of how natives ... ahem ... took advantage of their natural properties.

That said, the time of colonial-era exploration of the region was marked with simplified understandings of both native tribes and species. So while a very small number of tribes (some using darts, some using arrows) used a very small number of frog species, all of the brightly coloured frogs of central and south america are called "dart" or "arrow" frogs.