Poisonous frogs are better athletes
March 30th, 2011 - 5:40 pm ICT by IANSWashington, March 30 (IANS) The most toxic and brightly hued members of the poison frog family also display the highest athletic prowess.
Their spectacular hues serve to warn would-be predators of their chemical weapons - skin secretions containing nasty toxins called alkaloids, said Juan Santos, who led the study.
Santos, from the National Evolutionary Synthesis Centre (NESCent) in Durham, subjected nearly 500 poison frogs representing more than 50 species to a fitness test across forests in Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Panamá.
The result? The most dazzling and deadly species had higher aerobic capacity than their drab, nontoxic cousins, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports.
“They’re better able to extract oxygen from each breath and transport it to their muscles, just like well-trained athletes,” Santos said, according to a NESCent statement.
Poisonous species owe their athletic prowess to their unusual foraging habits, said co-author David Cannatella of the University of Texas, Austin.
Unlike snakes, poison frogs get their toxins from their food.
“They acquire their alkaloid chemicals by eating ants and mites,” Cannatella said.
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