The Most Dangerous Frog In The World

Frogs don't exactly scream death. Or do they? Frogs croak, don't they? And isn't 'croak' another way to say 'die' or 'kill?' Ergo, frogs breathe death, except for the Budweiser frogs, which scream liver disease. Even so, they don't look dangerous for the most part. In fact, the Goliath frog, which looks large enough to swallow a toddler whole, is still a little adorable. So a little frog that looks liable to choke on a gnat probably wouldn't instill fear. But in the case of the golden poison frog, it should. 

If looks could kill, the golden poison frog would be the most harmless amphibian on Earth. Per the BBC, some are as small as 1.5 centimeters long, and the largest are 6 inches. Roaring Earth likens it to "a slimy gerbil," presumably Lemmiwinks. But it's not a gerbil; it's a species of poison dart frog that packs a milligram of batrachotoxin. That minuscule amount is potent "enough to kill about 10,000 mice or roughly 10 to 20 humans" — or a buttload of gerbils. A gram of its toxic brew could kill an estimated 15,000 humans. Not only are these the world's deadliest frogs; they could be "the most poison animals alive."

The golden poison frog is proof that you are what you eat. It doesn't produce its own batrachotoxin but rather gets it from eating melyrid beetles, which contain the toxin. That's right, they eat poison for breakfast, a trait they have in common with other dart frogs. Researchers believe this may be an evolutionary accident, the result of ancestral dart frogs consuming "toxic ants by sheer chance." Why didn't the amphibians die? Expert Kyle Summers said it's possible that the frogs' fast metabolism may have enabled them to process and store the poison. Or maybe they're just tough as nails. Luckily, they don't eat nails because they would probably just absorb those, too, and the world probably isn't ready for a poison-tipped nail frog.