Shawn Harrington's "Gold"

[John]

Shawn Harrington was good enough to let me visit his frog room in November. I came to acquire some of Shawn's "Gold" - the yellow race of the Golden Poison Dart Frog, Phyllobates terribilis. The true “poison” dart frog, this species comes from the rain forest of Colombia and is the origin of the name “poison dart”, now applied indiscriminately to all South and Central American Dendrobatid frogs. The English name is deceptive – the colour of this frog varies from population to population, from orange to metallic mint-green!

Here are some of Shawn's P. terribilis tadpoles, happily developing in a pond in their parents' terrarium:



And a younger individual:



And the proud parents wonder why we were disturbing their happy family:



I came away with 5 of their froglets. When newly metamorphosed, as mine were, they are mostly a dark green/black colour, with two yellow lines, one on either side of their back. As they grow, the yellow develops and gradually pushes out the black. Here is a froglet at about a month out of the water:



And here today, about 3.5 months out of the water, you can see the frog now has adult colouration:



And what about the metallic mint green variety? Well Ray Coderre has some, here's one that posed for a photo:



This species is the biggest dart frog known, and adults have been known to tackle adult crickets!

[Kurt]

Those are nice! Never really liked the mints, but the yellow ones are sweet.

[spooky]

Wow! They're rather stunning aren't they?? I actually quite like the Mint one
Not as striking as the Gold, but still beautiful! Nice pics John

[Ebony]

Very nice John.

[Wembley]

Beautiful frogs and pics.
If I was going to get terribilis, it would be golden.

[daziladi]

What a handsome animal, congratulations. Will look forward to seeing their photos in the gallery as they grow. Since they are poisonous, I'm assuming you can't touch them?

[John]

They're not poisonous in captivity. However they, like all dart frogs, are delicate and shouldn't be handled anyhow, unless absolutely necessary. Most frogs are not "handle me" pets.