# Pumiliotoxins in dendrobates tinctorius



## Crazy frog (Aug 8, 2010)

Hi , a friend gave me some legally imported WC dendrobates tinctorius from surinam and my question is what are the side effect for Pumiliotoxin if it get inside your blood through an open wound etc, the risk and how long will it take for the toxins of a WC frog to be fully gone in captivity ??


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## easternversant (Sep 4, 2012)

First off, I wouldn't handle them barehanded if you have an open cut on your hand....

That said, you'll probably be fine. Since toxins are sequestered from their diet, toxicity slowly fades over time. No one (to my knowledge) has looked at how toxicity degrades over time, partially because most people skin the frog and extract the toxins in methanol to test for toxins. There are other ways though. I believe there is some anecdotal evidence that it lasts for quite some time though. How long ago were they collected from the wild?

The toxins probably won't be a big deal though. I've licked a whole bunch of species of Peruvian Ranitomeya and I've never had a problem. Some of my friends have done the same with Dendrobates auratus in central america. That said, I have had my thumb go numb from handling a bunch of them before. Also, I've heard (from a reputable source) someone that handled some Amereega trivittata and then ate lunch without thinking of washing his hands. He had some very uncomfortable gastrointestinal distress (stomach cramps, exploding movements, etc).

So, use your head and you'll be fine. You may want to use gloves, and at the very least wash your hands. If you rub your eyes, pick your nose, whatever, you could have a fair amount of distress.


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## Crazy frog (Aug 8, 2010)

easternversant said:


> First off, I wouldn't handle them barehanded if you have an open cut on your hand....
> 
> That said, you'll probably be fine. Since toxins are sequestered from their diet, toxicity slowly fades over time. No one (to my knowledge) has looked at how toxicity degrades over time, partially because most people skin the frog and extract the toxins in methanol to test for toxins. There are other ways though. I believe there is some anecdotal evidence that it lasts for quite some time though. How long ago were they collected from the wild?
> 
> ...


The frogs were collected not long ago maybe just like 6months and to play safe I shall use gloves when handling with them or cleaning their tanks , thanks man!


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## Reef_Haven (Jan 19, 2011)

easternversant said:


> The toxins probably won't be a big deal though. I've licked a whole bunch of species of Peruvian Ranitomeya and I've never had a problem. Some of my friends have done the same with Dendrobates auratus in central america.


I've seen this comment once or twice before.
What is the purpose of licking a PDF?


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## easternversant (Sep 4, 2012)

Reef_Haven said:


> I've seen this comment once or twice before.
> What is the purpose of licking a PDF?


Mostly curiosity. I was interested if there was a discernible taste difference between mimetic species.

I'm not promoting this. There are obviously a few species that this would not be smart to lick.


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## erik s (Apr 12, 2010)

Reef_Haven said:


> I've seen this comment once or twice before.
> What is the purpose of licking a PDF?


Thinking this may be along the same line....
Some people have been catching Colorado river toads and licking their backs to get "High"!!!


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## Brianrigs813 (Jul 10, 2012)

They're licking the frogs in Colorado because they contain a chemical called DMT (not sure what it means). It's a VERY powerful hallucinogen. It's used by Shamans all over the world to 'connect with the other side'. Not as in death but a different perception of our own reality.


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## Jsnptnd25 (Feb 2, 2012)

Dimethyltriptamine? 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


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## Judy S (Aug 29, 2010)

Psst.....careful ...or the Feds may want to control those frogs...or at least schedule them...or tax 'em


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Reef_Haven said:


> I've seen this comment once or twice before.
> What is the purpose of licking a PDF?


Some of the original researchers did it in the field to see if a population did have similar responses for a generalized idea. (Keep in mind that it was only fairly recently that a good handle was worked out on distribution of toxins)... 

I couldn't find the reference off hand, but wild caught adults can retain toxins for significant periods.. There are also anecdotal reports of symptoms like lip numbness and tingling from contacting wild caught frogs... 

Some comments

Ed


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## easternversant (Sep 4, 2012)

erik s said:


> Thinking this may be along the same line....
> Some people have been catching Colorado river toads and licking their backs to get "High"!!!


I've never heard of anyone doing this with dendrobatids, and it certainly isn't why I did it. I was just trying to get a feel for the frogs, and you can pick up subtle differences this way. To me imitator, variabilis, fantastica, etc all have a subtly different taste.


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## easternversant (Sep 4, 2012)

Ed said:


> Some of the original researchers did it in the field to see if a population did have similar responses for a generalized idea. (Keep in mind that it was only fairly recently that a good handle was worked out on distribution of toxins)...
> 
> I couldn't find the reference off hand, but wild caught adults can retain toxins for significant periods.. There are also anecdotal reports of symptoms like lip numbness and tingling from contacting wild caught frogs...
> 
> ...


Ed, it is my opinion that we still don't have a good handle on toxicity in a lot of these frogs. We know quite a bit about pumilio, the golden child of the dendrobatids, but our knowledge is very limited elsewhere. John Daly did a ton of work to advance our knowledge on these toxins. But we don't know much about variation over time (within and between years), how diet impacts toxicity, habitat impacts, etc. 

We are just now starting to get a good idea about how toxicity correlates with conspicuousness both within the family and within species--even if this is contradictory thus far. 

I apologize if my tone came off as berating or mean, I certainly don't mean it to. I just think there is a lot to do still  Maybe this should be a different thread or a private conversation though since we are now fairly far off-topic...


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Hmm. I'm not sure that you can say on a definative basis that toxicity correlated with conspicuousness except in the broadest terms. There are a couple of interesting papers that show wide variations over time within a population... 

See for example (from 2006) Journal of Chemical Ecology , Volume 32, Number 4 - SpringerLink 

and (from 2007) ScienceDirect.com - Toxicon - Spatial and temporal patterns of alkaloid variation in the poison frog Oophaga pumilio in Costa Rica and Panama over 30 years 

So you could not only have an individual (or individuals) of a highly aposematic population ranging from effectively being non-toxic to high levels of toxicity and the opposite example of populations of much less aposomatic animals actually with a higher toxicity level than more aposomatic animals. 

The variation in geography is interestingly enough also repeated in mantellids.. Journal of Chemical Ecology , Volume 34, Number 2 - SpringerLink 

Some comments

Ed


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## easternversant (Sep 4, 2012)

Ed said:


> Hmm. I'm not sure that you can say on a definative basis that toxicity correlated with conspicuousness except in the broadest terms. There are a couple of interesting papers that show wide variations over time within a population...
> 
> 
> Ed


I'm not saying that they are definitively correlated. The evidence is somewhat contradictory in dendrobatids thus far. Across the family it seems like there is a correlation between increased conspicuousness and increased toxicity (Summers and Clough 2001). However it is contradictory within species; positive in pumilio (Maan and Cummings 2012) and negative in granulifera (Wang 2011.

There certainly is variation within populations, as well as evidence that there may be between the sexes but the 'average' toxicity may be the most important from the perspective of predator's.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Interesting that the arguments for aposematic coloration pretty much disregarded the impact of mate choice by the females driving the diversity of the patterns. 

The whole thing on geographic variation in toxin profiles has been well established in other dendrobatids (see ScienceDirect.com - Toxicon - Variability in alkaloid profiles in neotropical poison frogs (Dendrobatidae): Genetic versus environmental determinants) for many years... 

While I understand that these are fairly recent documentation of what has been considered accepted for quite awhile now, the trend for most of these papers has been to focus on avian predation despite the relative lack of documentation that this is a major source of predation on dendrobatids.. (if I remember correctly, the bibliography in this article is a good source Risk Assessment and Withdrawal Behavior by Two Species of Aposematic Poison Frogs, Dendrobates auratus and Oophaga pumilio, on Forest Trails - Cooper Jr - 2009 - Ethology - Wiley Online Library) As a result I would be hesistant to assign that with a large amount of weight as of yet.. 

As for aposematic coloration in relation to toxicity, we also see that the relatively camoflaged C. inguinalis is a pretty hot frog since it uses tetrodotoxin for it's contribution to the puzzle in the dendrobatidae.... 

To a fair extent, I think we both generally agree and are just diffferent in how much weight we should assigning to the citations. 

Some comments

Ed


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## easternversant (Sep 4, 2012)

Well, sexual selection is a whole other bag of worms. There is certainly some interplay between the two but it is hard to get at both of them at the same time. So people are taking them individually for the most part at the moment.

Using avian vision models to examine conspicuousness is of course limited, but I think it is a logical decision. Obviously bright colors are going to be directed at potential predators with good color vision. This is primarily birds. Snakes and inverts don't have great vision (though the contrasting patterns may function similarly for these predators) and mammals are primarily nocturnal. Pumilio is even more noticeable to birds than to its own species (can't remember the citation off the top of my head). Further, plasticine models in situ are primarily attacked by birds and I've seen a number of frogs in the wild that have obvious scarring that looks like past predation attempts. Aposematic signals may be directed at multiple types of predators, but it clearly functions fairly well with birds--which is why it is so poorly documented. We might as well start there. 

One thing about the older studies is that they only identify the toxins, and for the most part don't really give any indication how predators perceive toxicity. There is a geographic component to toxicity, but no one is really sure how it works. Oophaga granulifera is less toxic in the northern part of its range, but is less conspicuous (yellow and green). I really have no idea what it is driving these differences between close congenerics as pumilio toxicity is correlated with conspicuousness (unless granulifera can get away with being less toxic in the south where it is in sympatry with a red pumilio). It'll be real interesting to see how mimetic populations of imitator and its model species turn out....

Anyways, I think you are right--we seem to view the lit with somewhat different weights.


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## outofreach (Aug 21, 2012)

easternversant said:


> I've never heard of anyone doing this with dendrobatids, and it certainly isn't why I did it. I was just trying to get a feel for the frogs, and you can pick up subtle differences this way. To me imitator, variabilis, fantastica, etc all have a subtly different taste.


Just out of curiosity why would you want to know what they taste like?

Why would the different taste be important, at least in 2012.


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## james67 (Jun 28, 2008)

erik s said:


> Some people have been catching Colorado river toads and licking their backs to get "High"!!!





Brianrigs813 said:


> They're licking the frogs in Colorado because they contain a chemical called DMT (not sure what it means). It's a VERY powerful hallucinogen. It's used by Shamans all over the world to 'connect with the other side'. Not as in death but a different perception of our own reality.


sorry to get back off topic but this is a pet peeve of mine. bufo alvarius (Colorado river toad) produces DMT, dimethyltryptamine. a chemical which does have hallucinogenic properties. HOWEVER, no one licks them, because one, the venom containing the DMT is produced in glands that only release the venom when the animal is stressed or when the glands are forcibly manipulated (not like darts which have some concentration of poisons covering their entire skin). two, the venom also contains bufotenin which people can have severe adverse reactions to when taken orally and three, because regardless how much DMT you eat it simply will NOT cause a reaction on its own. in order to get the hallucinogenic effect orally, it must be combined with a monoamine oxidase inhibitor.

the toad licking thing is BS 100%. its an urban legend perpetuated by people who dont understand the animal or the science of the compound.

furthermore, ALL living things produce DMT. the only reason the Colorado river toad is significant at all is because it uses this compound as a defense mechanism and therefore produces higher concentrations than other animal life.

james


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## erik s (Apr 12, 2010)

James, thank you for clearing that up!!!!


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## easternversant (Sep 4, 2012)

outofreach said:


> Just out of curiosity why would you want to know what they taste like?
> 
> Why would the different taste be important, at least in 2012.


Well, out of curiosity of course! In all seriousness though, their taste is what deters most predators (or at least those predators that A) decide to attack and B) decide they are too toxic to eat). So theoretically, their taste matters as much now as when they evolved toxicity. I was just trying to get a handle on it for my own benefit.


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## edwardsatc (Feb 17, 2004)

easternversant said:


> Well, out of curiosity of course! In all seriousness though, their taste is what deters most predators (or at least those predators that A) decide to attack and B) decide they are too toxic to eat). So theoretically, their taste matters as much now as when they evolved toxicity. I was just trying to get a handle on it for my own benefit.


While this may be true, running around telling hobbyists that you lick dendrobatids and suffer no ill effects is totally irresponsible. My guess is that neither Kyle nor Jeff McKinnon would approve ...


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## edwardsatc (Feb 17, 2004)

I should apologize to Adam.

I should have privately posted the above message and not taken my frustration public.


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## Phyllobates azureus (Aug 18, 2010)

D. tinctorius produces the comparatively mild pumiliotoxin B. If placed on a clean cut or an abrasion (scrape), or possibly highly porous areas of the skin as well, it can cause headache, muscle pain, stiffnss, and nausea. As stated above, pumiliotoxins can induce hallucinations if the frogs are licked. However, you should not worry about poisoning from D. tinctorius for three reasons. 

Firstly, as stated above, the toxins deteriorate over time in captivity. Within a couple of months of being in captivity even the four super-toxic species (Phyllobates terribilis, P. bicolor, a new unnamed species and P. aurotaenia) become almost completely free of toxins. Less-toxic species, like those of the Dendrobates, Adelphobates and Ranitomeya genera will, presumably, become safe to handle even more quickly.

Secondly, D. tinctorius produces a relatively mild version of pumiliotoxin, Pumiliotoxin B. Different poison dart frogs have different levels of toxicity. The least toxic are the members of the genus Ranitomeya- they usually produce pumiliotoxin C in very small amounts and so even wild ones, with a little care, can be handled. Dendrobates and Adelphobates species mostly produce pumiliotoxin B, which is a bit more toxic. D. leucomelas is an exception- compared to the other members of the genus, it is highly toxic. The really nasty pumiliotoxin variants are found in the Oophaga species, especially O. lehmanni, and some Ameerega. Even these are mild compared to the batrachotoxins produced by Phyllobates species. So as far as dart frogs go, tinctorius is not especially poisonous.

Finally, most tinctorius morphs don't have nearly enough poison to kill a human. The lethal dose of pumiliotoxin B is about 3.5 milligrams, and even the biggest tinctorius morphs barely produce 1 milligram of poison.

Hope this helps.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Phyllobates azureus said:


> Firstly, as stated above, the toxins deteriorate over time in captivity. Within a couple of months of being in captivity even the four super-toxic species (Phyllobates terribilis, P. bicolor, a new unnamed species and P. aurotaenia) become almost completely free of toxins. Less-toxic species, like those of the Dendrobates, Adelphobates and Ranitomeya genera will, presumably, become safe to handle even more quickly.


Do you have a reference for that above? It goes against what has been documented for wild caught frogs. Wild caught frogs are known to retain the toxins for up to several years in captivity while captive bred frogs fed a diet in the toxins do lose them within a few months. from The Ecological Significance of Lipophilic Alkaloids in the Dendrobatidae (Amphibia: Anura)



> The alkaloids were retained for several months. It has been demonstrated, in wild caught specimens of Dendrobates auratus, D. azureus, D. lehmanni, D. tinctorius, Epipedobates trivittatus, and *Phyllobates* terribilis, that alkaloids are retained for several years in captivity (Daly et al., 1994). The alkaloids are retained exclusively in the *skin*, with no detectable alkaloids in muscle or organ tissue. It is possible that the *retention* of alkaloids is aided by frogs eating their own shed *skin* (Daly et al., 1994).


Specifically see Daly, JW, Secunda, SI, Garraffo, HM, Spande, TF, Wiskienski, A, Cover, JF Jr.(1994) An Uptake System for Dietary Alkaloids in Poison Frogs (_Dendrobatidae_). _Toxicon_, 32:6, 657-663 

Ed


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