# Poison Question



## crb_22601 (Jan 12, 2006)

I just watched a show on PBS talking about certain poisions that are used to make cures for certain sicknesses. It was very interesting. One of the poisons that was mentioned was from poision dart frogs. Which I kinda already knew people were using then the question hit me. On the show it sounded as if one of the places they are working with them is in Atlanta. Then i got to thinking if Dart frogs loose there Toxity in Captivity how are they able to still work with the frog posisions after a while?


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## MonarchzMan (Oct 23, 2006)

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but first off, it takes a while for the frogs to lose their toxicity. Secondly, if you can figure out the molecular make up of a toxin, then you can replicate it, more or less, I think...

It is rather cool. Epipediobates tricolor is the species that I'm aware of with it's toxin being used for medicine. Supposedly it's a better pain killer than morphine and it's nonaddictive. All the more reason to save the frogs!


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## crb_22601 (Jan 12, 2006)

So does that mean the wild caught frogs are still toxic?


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

To some degree or another, yes. There are several toxins that make our frogs poisonous, and from my limited understanding of the subject, not all toxins are lost when they're kept in captivity.


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## rbrightstone (Apr 14, 2004)

Most of the toxins in dart frogs are alkaloyds, and they can take a very long time to break down, so yes all imported frogs are toxic to a limited extent. There are only a couple of frogs that are fatal to humans.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Seems that while the drug has been hyped, I'm not sure if they've actually replicated it in a usable way... but cancer attacking stuff has been isolated and replicated from norther leopard frog eggs, so the froggies are still giving us some good drugs, and not just from licking them!


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

snip "Most of the toxins in dart frogs are alkaloyds, and they can take a very long time to break down, so yes all imported frogs are toxic to a limited extent. There are only a couple of frogs that are fatal to humans."endsnip

I would be strongly hesitant to characterize all of the potential toxins in dart frogs skin to be dietarily derived or to be alkaloids. There are a wide variety of toxic peptides that are found cross genera such as caerulin or bradykinin.. 

Ed


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## Curt61 (Jan 16, 2007)

Hey, I don't know much about the poison the frogs have, but I do know that it comes from their diet in their natural habitat, Why wouldn't they put the same bugs and same plants from their natural habitat in the viv or enclousure?

Just a question I have always wondered about, Curt.


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## r90s (Jun 13, 2006)

About a year ago I read an article about (WC) Phyllobates Terribilis, that had been kept at a museum for ten years, and they were still hot enough to kill.

This article was on the internet, so a google search just might come up with it...

r90s


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## Ben_C (Jun 25, 2004)

> Hey, I don't know much about the poison the frogs have, but I do know that it comes from their diet in their natural habitat, Why wouldn't they put the same bugs and same plants from their natural habitat in the viv or enclousure?


Curt,
The arthropods that are the source of the toxins are not all known, actually. They know a few that are potential sources of pumiliotoxin, batrachotoxin, etc. but we don't know the sources of ALL the alkaloids.
Also, there are some issues with maintaining a lot of these insects in captivity. THe diets are not completely known for a lot of these arthropods so finding the plant which produces the toxin (or precursor to toxin), growing it in the right conditions, feeding it to the arthropods, then on up is pretty time consuming. Also, extracting the alkaloids is not pretty (most of the time) and it is much easier (from a research point of view) to use wild collected animals to extract toxin. Note, I'm not saying that it is the best solution to this but hopefully I provided a few reasons as to why they just use wild collected animals.
I hope this helps,
B


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

As Ben already started to touch on, the process that these frogs "develop" their poisons is poorly understood, and the more we understand it, the more complex it becomes! They are actually part of a complex chain of "passing the poison". The specific mixes in the frogs' skin varies by population due to the invertabrates that they feed on in that area, seasonal availability, etc.

The most well known "chains" in PDFs has to do with the frogs eating a certain species of ant... which trims certain tree species for vegetation to grow certain species of fungus in their fungus gardens (which is actually what they eat). If you miss one of those steps (having the trees, the fungus, or the ants) then the chain is broken and you won't get those specific toxins passed onto the frogs. Trees and ant colonies are not easy to keep in captivity... and then you have to consider that those ants are one of thousands of species the frogs are eating. They may not even have the specific toxin you're looking for! So "cultivating" the toxins in captive animals isn't really feasible right now..

And as Ed pointed out, those are just the ones that are developed due to diet. 

Wild frogs do hold their toxins for years, and I believe the theory goes that some toxins degrade in the skin/need to be replaced more often than others... so some frogs with certain toxins may have them degrade quicker than others... always treat a WC animal as if they are still as toxic as they were the same day they were pulled from the wild. I wear gloves when I need to handle frogs, toxic or otherwise (my hands probably have just as bad stuff for frogs as their toxins are for me!), but it was drilled into me a lot when I was younger, and working with some WC PDFs - some a decade or more out of the wild. Getting "poisoned" is not the best experience... all you needed was a cut on your hand when holding a frog for an ID photo... eeeeeek.


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## Ben_C (Jun 25, 2004)

> Getting "poisoned" is not the best experience...


I'll second that!
~B


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## glarior (Mar 31, 2007)

*interesting*

I watched another show talking about different animals and their toxins titled "venom: 9 ways to die" very good show on the science channel. Anyways, the very end was talking about PDF's and how toxic they are. However, they are able to make cures for sickness too which was stated at the begining of the post. 

So captive bred PDF's still have potential to hold toxins harmful to us?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Yes cb and cr pdf still have toxins that can harm us if ingested... or otherwise introduced into the body but then so do most other amphibians... 

If you dig around on here or the frognet.org archives there is a description of the effect from someone stressing out a cb terriblis and then injesting some of the secretions that were released. 

Even Xenopus have peptides in thier skin that you don't want to eat (for a good overview and discussion of the effects of the common peptides in the skin of anurans I strongly recommend Amphibian Biology volume 1 The Integument ed Heatwold). 

Ed


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## UmbraSprite (Mar 2, 2007)

Ed said:


> If you dig around on here or the frognet.org archives there is a description of the effect from someone stressing out a cb terriblis and then injesting some of the secretions that were released.
> Ed


Tell me you aren't serious? I mean...I know some reputable people at some of our favorite institutions that have messed around with say...an auratus but anyone who would even think to mess with a frog that toxic is a candidate for the Darwin Awards. 

If only a trace of toxin remained you are just as likely to drop dead as get a neat numb feeling on your tongue.

Wow. Just amazing. :shock:


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

see http://www.dendroboard.com/phpBB2/viewt ... s&start=15 

Ed


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## glarior (Mar 31, 2007)

*interesting*

Interesting. I thank everyone for going more in depth about PDF toxin. The book I have pretty much stated that they lose their toxins in captivity and thats it. Makes me want to take organic chem next semester lol.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

We all mess with animals that are toxic, some on higher levels than others. How many of us have messed with a toad in our back yard? They can be more dangerous than some of the PDF species - even wild caught - that we mess with. Ideally we shouldn't be doing anything with either animal that would involve ingesting toxins...

And while it sounds like the keeper was a candidate for the Darwin awards (ok, in some ways he was) there are a few things to take away from it... the complexity of what makes our animals toxic, how to correctly handle a frog when treating it (which is how the frog got stressed out), and when your finger tingles from contact with the frog do NOT lick the finger to see what happens! The terribilis were many times captive born and fed the same diets as we all feed our frogs pretty much, and how many times have we heard that CB frogs are nontoxic? Correction - LESS toxic, PDFs can make some minor chemicals on their own, but the big players seem to come from diet (in one of the articles that proposed this theory, using auratus, there were still some chemicals produced in small amounts, people always seem to skip that part of the paper since it amounted to nothing serious). If you have to handle these animals, use gloves for the safety of yourself and the frog (especially the frog, we can have some nasty chemicals - to a frog - on our hands). If your skin tingles from coming in contact with a frog, wash the skin, do not lick :roll:


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## r90s (Jun 13, 2006)

Check out this link.
http://lists.frognet.org/htdig.cgi/frognet-frognet.org/2005-January/013412.html


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## Baltimore Bryan (Sep 6, 2006)

i was watching a show on discovery channel and it described PDF's poisons and how they are used for medicine. they mentioned a specific type of beetle (can't remember off the top of my head but i taped it on video, maybe i'll watch it) that was eaten by the frogs and gave them the toxicity. i thought it was strange because it said that same kind of beetle is found in New Giuniea (sorry for the bad spelling) and was eaten by a kind of bird. that type of bird actually is poisonous and the explorer who found the bird died when he caught it... i think the beetle gave off batrachatoxins, but i could be wrong. i don't think its eaten by all PDF's, just a few. hope it helps


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Here's the abstract to the paper about melyrid beetles, pitohui birds, and batrachotoxins.

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/101/45/15857

Basically, this type of beetle is generally widespread around the world. They discovered it as the source for batrachotoxin in the bird in New Guinea, and logically deduce it is a likely source for PDF in Colombia. To my knowledge the Colombian source has not been confirmed.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

And the more they look into these various toxins, the more sources that are being discovered... ants, mites, and beetles... which in at least the case of the ants, and possibly the mites, they are not the originators but take it from fungus they eat  Pretty cool...


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## stchupa (Apr 25, 2006)

Nobody brought up anything on the secondary assimilation of some toxins through seperate organisms (symbiots) living on/in/w/ the frogs?


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