First Ever Venomous Frogs Discovered with a Deadly Headbut

But these two Brazilian frogs have well-developed delivery mechanisms, making them venomous like snakes and scorpions.

Researchers were aware of poisonous frogs, but they have discovered two frogs having venomous spikes on their heads.

Meanwhile, 2350 metres high in the forests of the Peruvian Andes, biologists found a tiny fleshbelly frog hardly bigger than a beetle and hitherto unknown to science that had been leaping around in the leaf litter under their feet. The resulting injury caused “intense pain radiating up the arm, lasting about 5 hours”, writes Jared in a paper about the discovery.

“Carlos was jabbed by spines while collecting the frog”, says Edmund Brodie of Utah State University in Logan.

The frogs also had the bony spines on their jaws, noses and back of their heads.

Scientists have discovered new frog species in Brazil that possess venomous spikes on top of their heads.

Corythomantis greening, one of the frog’s scientific name, has spikes on its head which can inject predators or enemies with poisonous secretions, said Carlos Jared of Butantan Institute.

Other studies had shown that frog species include some specimens that are among the most poisonous amphibians on Earth including Colombia’s golden poison dart frog that can kill up to 10 adults and whose toxin is used by natives to coat their blowgun darts. “The presence of these spines suggests that at least some other tree frogs might actively rather than passively defend themselves against attackers”, he says.

What’s the difference between “poisonous” and “venomous”?

For an animal to be considered venomous, the creature needs to have two things: poison, and a mechanism to deliver said poison.

The poison is more deadly than the secretions of a pit viper, and one of the discoverers, Carlos Jared of the Instituto Butantan in Sao Paulo found out the hard way.

One gram from Corythomantis greeningi could kill over 24.000 mice and six humans and is twice as lethal compared to the venomous Brazilian Bothrops pit vipers that are deadly. Its venom was a whopping 25 times more deadly than that of a pit viper, but this time the researchers were smart-they didn’t pick it up.

LiveScience reports the discovery (published August 6 in the journal Current Biology) came with a painful price. He was fascinated to learn that the poorly-studied species A. brunoi and C. greeningi have no natural predators.

However, the C.greeningi is less venomous than its counterpart. However: “We don’t know of any animal that successfully feasts on these frogs”, the USU professor said in the release”.