The golden poison frog’s deadliest trait does not belong to it alone; it is assembled through the rainforest it lives inside.
Field Notes
The frog is born without its famous toxicity. It gathers the compounds through the insects it eats, becoming extraordinarily poisonous only through its participation in a particular food web. When its diet changes in captivity, the poison gradually disappears.
What looks like the power of a single animal is actually the work of an entire environment. The frog reminds us that no living thing can be fully understood by looking only at the body in front of us. Some of what appears to be individual is created by everything surrounding it.