Daily Devotional – September 3

Biology

There are over 245 different species of poison dart frogs that live in the rainforests of the Americas. They display a dizzying array of bright colors ranging from deep blue to strawberry red and metallic green to polka-dotted yellow! The golden poison dart frog is one of the deadliest; if a person has the equivalent of two grains of table salt of the toxin in his bloodstream, he is dead within minutes! This toxin is so powerful that if an animal even touches the spot where a golden poison dart frog has recently sat, it dies!

When indigenous Colombian natives go hunting, they will catch these golden poison dart frogs and rub their darts on the frog’s back. They then use blow guns with their poisonous darts to kill monkeys, birds, or even jaguars. One golden poison dart frog has enough poison to kill 10-12 people. Yet, the same frogs in captivity are not poisonous. Why?

Poison dart frogs obtain their poison from the foods they eat - such as ants and beetles. In captivity, they are not fed their usual rainforest food. How does a poisonous dart frog fit into the biblical account of a perfect, death-free world as described in the Garden of Eden? In the beginning, everything was good; dart frogs did not have an active poison. Adam and Eve could have held these dart frogs, examined their dazzlingly beautiful colors of red, blue, and yellow - and not been harmed. When Adam sinned, nature became cursed. Animals started to eat one another, and inactive defensive mechanisms became activated. Thus, the dart frogs became poisonous only after eating other creatures. God gave these tiny frogs protection from predators in a fallen world.

Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

~ Psalm 124:8

Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett

References for this devotional.