We saw an ad on the DC metro for a “live frog” exhibit at National Geographic, so when the museums weren’t working out too well, we decided to find it. It rained the day we went, but the frog exhibit was worth the walk in the rain. It wasn’t a large exhibit, but we enjoyed the variations in the frogs and of course, found the poison dart frogs fascinating. They are the most beautiful of frogs (well, they are the most colorful anyway) and also the most deadly.

Indigenous Emberá people of Colombia have used the poison from the frogs for centuries to tip their blowgun darts when hunting, hence the genus’ common name. There was a nice display of a blowgun and the the quiver used to store the darts. From what I read, the toxicity of the frog is most likely dependent on what the frog eats; frogs in captivity are not toxic and for those in the wild, the toxicity varies in each population.