Oophaga

Oophaga
Oophaga pumilio
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Anura
Family: Dendrobatidae
Subfamily: Dendrobatinae
Genus: Oophaga
Bauer, 1994
Type species
Dendrobates pumilio
Schmidt, 1857
Diversity
12 species (see text)

Oophaga is a group of frogs that make poison in their skins. This group has twelve species in it. Scientists used to think these frogs were in Dendrobates, but they changed their minds. The frogs live in Central and South America, from Nicaragua south through the El Chocó to northern Ecuador. Peopl ehave seem them as high as 1,200 m (3,900 ft) above sea level. They can live in different places. Some live in trees and others live on the ground. All of the tadpoles in Oophaga eat eggs and nothing else. Most species in this genus are may die out soon. O. speciosa is already dead.

Name

Oophaga, is Greek for "egg eater" (oon, phagos). Scientists named the frogs Oophaga because the tadpoles eat eggs.

Young

Scientists think all frogs in this group watch and care for the eggs, but frogs in Oophaga do more than other frogs do: the tadpoles can only eat eggs that the mother frog makes for them to eat. When they eat the eggs, they also take in poison chemicals that make it harder for other animals to eat them. Scientists fed plain eggs to Oophaga pumilio tadpoles to see what would happen.

Species

There are twelve species in this genus:

ImageScientific nameCommon nameDistribution
Oophaga anchicayensis (Posso-Terranova and Andrés, 2018) Chocó region of northwestern Colombia
Oophaga andresi (Posso-Terranova and Andrés, 2018) Cocorro Columbia
Oophaga arborea (Myers, Daly, and Martínez, 1984)Polkadot poison frogPanama
Oophaga granulifera (Taylor, 1958)Granular poison frogCosta Rica and Panama
Oophaga histrionica (Berthold, 1845)Harlequin poison frogEl Chocó region of western Colombia
Oophaga lehmanni (Myers and Daly, 1976)Lehmann's poison frogwestern Colombia
Oophaga occultator (Myers and Daly, 1976)La Brea poison frogCordillera Occidental in the Cauca Department of Colombia
Oophaga pumilio (Schmidt, 1857)Strawberry poison-dart frogeastern central Nicaragua through Costa Rica and northwestern Panama
Oophaga solanensis (Posso-Terranova and Andrés, 2018)Koe-koeNorthwestern region of Colombia, on the western banks of the Atrato and san Juan rivers
Oophaga speciosa (Schmidt, 1857)Splendid poison frogCordillera de Talamanca, western Panama (extinct)
Oophaga sylvatica (Funkhouser, 1956)Diablito poison frogsouthwestern Colombia and northwestern Ecuador.
Oophaga vicentei (Jungfer, Weygoldt, and Juraske, 1996)Vicente's poison frogVeraguas, Bocas del Toro, Colón and Coclé Provinces of central Panama

With humans

Some people keep Oophaga as pets. Only skilled amphibian keepers can do this. It is hard to raise new froglets because only the mother frog can feed the tadpoles.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Grant, T.; Frost, D. R.; Caldwell, J. P.; Gagliardo, R.; Haddad, C. F. B.; Kok, P. J. R.; Means, D. B.; Noonan, B. P.; Schargel, W. E. & Wheeler, W. C. (2006). "Phylogenetic systematics of dart-poison frogs and their relatives (Amphibia: Athesphatanura: Dendrobatidae)" (PDF). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 299. American Museum of Natural History: 1–262. doi:10.1206/0003-0090(2006)299[1:PSODFA]2.0.CO;2. S2CID 82263880.
  2. 1 2 Frost, Darrel R. (2022). "Oophaga Bauer, 1994". Amphibian Species of the World: An Online Reference. Version 6.1. American Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 29 March 2022.
  3. 1 2 3 "Oophaga — the obligate egg feeders". dendroWorks. 2011. Archived from the original on 11 August 2016. Retrieved 12 September 2014.
  4. 1 2 Vitt, Laurie J.; Caldwell, Janalee P. (2014). Herpetology: An Introductory Biology of Amphibians and Reptiles (4th ed.). Academic Press. p. 490.
  5. ↑ "Poison Dart Frog Genus Oophaga". www.dartfrog.pet. Retrieved 2022-04-21.
  6. ↑ "Oophaga". IUCN Red List. IUCN. Retrieved 3 December 2023.
  7. ↑ "-phagous | Origin and meaning of suffix -phagous by Online Etymology Dictionary".
  8. ↑ "Egg | Origin and meaning of egg by Online Etymology Dictionary".
  9. ↑ Heselhaus, R. 1992. Poison-arrow frogs: their natural history and care in captivity. Blandford, London.
  10. ↑ Zimmermann, E. and Zimmermann, H. 1994. Reproductive strategies, breeding, and conservation of tropical frogs: dart-poison frogs and Malagasy poison frogs. In: J.B. Murphy, K. Adler and J.T. Collins (eds), Captive management and conservation of amphibians and reptiles, pp. 255-266. Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, Ithaca (New York). Contributions to Herpetology, Volume 11.
  11. ↑ Stynoski, J. L.; Torres-Mendoza, Y.; Sasa-Marin, M.; Saporito, R. A. (2014). "Evidence of maternal provisioning of alkaloid-based chemical defenses in the strawberry poison frog Oophaga pumilio". Ecology. 95 (3): 587–593. doi:10.1890/13-0927.1. hdl:10669/76946. PMID 24804437.