Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica
Our day was like a story pulled out of a magazine. The great blue morning sky anticipated a day full of pleasant surprises at Corcovado National Park.
It wasn’t quite 7:00 a.m. when our Zodiacs were on their way to shore. The group divided into different categories: the hikers, the walkers, and the strollers, all of whom had the same idea in mind, to experience the rain forest at its fullest.
The forest responded accordingly indeed, and the different groups that headed into the wild were met by mantled howler monkeys, white-nosed coatimundis, Central American agoutis, red-capped and blue-crowned manakins, and among all these creatures, one that is very seldom found in these realms, specially during dry season: a green poison-dart frog or otherwise known as Dendrobates auratus (photo).
Being a strikingly colored individual in the tropical forest doesn’t give you much hope for survival. In a world full of natural enemies, you should exercise camouflage. True… unless of course, you possess a powerful weapon.
Dendrobates frogs do possess such a weapon: POISON! And their enemies have learned to avoid them precisely because of their coloration; some predators that feel initially attracted to these “brilliant creatures” soon learn the catastrophic implications of their mistake, and will surely not forget the lesson on the next encounter. This defense mechanism is called aposematic coloration, it is practiced by several living organisms in natural environs around the world, from snakes to birds to insects, and the message appears to be always the same: “Don’t mess with me!”
Our day was like a story pulled out of a magazine. The great blue morning sky anticipated a day full of pleasant surprises at Corcovado National Park.
It wasn’t quite 7:00 a.m. when our Zodiacs were on their way to shore. The group divided into different categories: the hikers, the walkers, and the strollers, all of whom had the same idea in mind, to experience the rain forest at its fullest.
The forest responded accordingly indeed, and the different groups that headed into the wild were met by mantled howler monkeys, white-nosed coatimundis, Central American agoutis, red-capped and blue-crowned manakins, and among all these creatures, one that is very seldom found in these realms, specially during dry season: a green poison-dart frog or otherwise known as Dendrobates auratus (photo).
Being a strikingly colored individual in the tropical forest doesn’t give you much hope for survival. In a world full of natural enemies, you should exercise camouflage. True… unless of course, you possess a powerful weapon.
Dendrobates frogs do possess such a weapon: POISON! And their enemies have learned to avoid them precisely because of their coloration; some predators that feel initially attracted to these “brilliant creatures” soon learn the catastrophic implications of their mistake, and will surely not forget the lesson on the next encounter. This defense mechanism is called aposematic coloration, it is practiced by several living organisms in natural environs around the world, from snakes to birds to insects, and the message appears to be always the same: “Don’t mess with me!”
