Dimdima
Online Children's Magazine from India
Dimdima
Online Children's Magazine from India
Its Prey Provides Food And Poison
Poison dart frogs are brightly coloured frogs found in parts of Central and South America. They are small in size, about 2.5 cm in length and weigh only a few grams, but they secrete a powerful nerve poison. The poison is a defense against predators.
Forest dwellers use the poison in hunting. They dip the tips of darts into the poison and then, using blowguns, shoot the darts into the animal they are hunting.
It was from this practice that the frogs got their name. There are over 100 species of poison dart frogs. All are brightly coloured (the colour serves to warn predators), and all are poisonous, though some more than others.
They all belong to the family Dendrobatidae.
An interesting thing about the poison they secrete is that it is obtained from poisons contained in the bodies of their own prey: spiders, beetles, ants and termites. The frog alters the poison drawn from the bodies of its prey to make it several times more potent and then bathes its skin in it. So its prey serves both as food and raw material for its self-defence apparatus.
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Dimdima is the Sanskrit word for ‘drumbeat’. In olden days, victory in battle was heralded by the beat of drums or any important news to be conveyed to the people used to be accompanied with drumbeats.
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
K. M Munshi Marg,
Chowpatty, Mumbai - 400 007
email : editor@dimdima.com
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
505, Sane Guruji Marg,
Tardeo, Mumbai - 400 034
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Dimdima.com, the Children's Website of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan launched in 2000 and came out with a Printed version of Dimdima Magazine in 2004. At present the Printed Version have more than 35,000 subscribers from India and Abroad.