Study
Dietary source for skin alkaloids of poison frogs (Dendrobatidae)
Daly, John W.; Secunda, Sandra I.; Garraffo, H. Martin; Spande, Thomas F.; Wisnieski, Anthony; Cover, James F.
Journal of Chemical Ecology, 1994
Raised poison frogs on diets lacking their natural arthropod prey and analysed their skin for alkaloids, then tested whether alkaloids appeared when specific dietary items were reintroduced.
- Studied in
- Dendrobatidae
- Sample size
- captive-raised frogs on controlled diets
Frogs raised without their natural prey lacked skin alkaloids almost entirely. Alkaloids appeared when appropriate arthropods were included in the diet, establishing dietary origin rather than synthesis by the frog.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Poison frogs sequester alkaloids from their arthropod prey rather than producing them, which explains the loss of toxicity in captivity.
How NatureHQ reads it
The result that reframes what a poison frog is. The toxicity is not a property of the species so much as of a species in a particular food web — which is why the captive animal in a vivarium is genuinely not dangerous, and why the same species can differ in toxicity between wild populations.
- Captive diets are simplified, so the full set of dietary sources was not established by this work alone.
- Alkaloid profiles differ between species and populations, and dietary origin is better established for some compounds than others.
Feeding poison frogs the wrong food
Do poison frogs manufacture their alkaloids, or take them from something they eat?
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Poison frogs
Poison frogs do not make their poison. They take alkaloids from the mites and ants they eat and store them in the skin — so a frog raised on other food is not poisonous, and wild populations differ with their prey.
Chemical defence
Spraying, bleeding, frothing, oozing and stinging are not the same thing. Only the ones that put a substance through a wound are venom, and most chemical defences do not.
Fireflies
Photuris females reproduce the answering flash of another firefly genus, draw in the males that reply, and eat them — and by doing so acquire a chemical defence they cannot manufacture themselves.
Published by: Springer journalsPublished in a Springer journal.
Checked against Crossref on 2026-09-28, and they agree on the title, the authors and the year.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-09-03.