Tag Archives: vivarium

Poison dart frog

Tuesday 18th November 2025, 3.05pm (day 5,199)

Poison dart frog, 18/11/25

This little feller is, at most, two inches long but what does he care? In the wild these kinds of frog accumulate enough poison in their skin to kill a dozen people. But apparently they acquire it by eating certain types of ant and other insects, and when fed a different diet in captivity, the toxicity is lost. Maybe he doesn’t know. If he did, would he care? (Taken in the Manchester Museum’s vivarium, where saw some of his cousins before, in 2014.)

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Golden Mantellas, Manchester Museum

Sunday 23rd February 2014, 11.30am (day 913)

Frogs in vivarium, 23/2/14

Had to go into Manchester today. Once the errand was done, Joe and I passed some time in the Manchester Museum, which is on the university campus but which I have managed never to properly explore in the 8 years I have worked there. It’s a good natural history and anthropological museum, in fact. These frogs are native to Madagascar and critically endangered in the wild. They’re toxic, though not extremely so.

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