What are some brightly colored poisonous animals?

Answer 1

It's the same principle of a stop sign. Stop signs are red because the bright color naturally warns you of a potential situation. Brightly colored poisonous frogs for example, are trying to warn the possible threat first through visuals as a warning to stay away so that the possible threat can avoid the more serious poison. It's called posturing. It's natural in both the animal and human world as way to avoid unnecessary confrontation. Just because the critter is poisonous doesn't imply that it intends to use the poison. In humans, a direct example can be taken from the history of warfare. The vaunted and famous former British Empire fielded troops in their armies wearing red. They also wore tall black hats. The hats added emphasis to the physical size of the individual while the red coats emphasized presence, or more appropriately the size in massed numbers. The psychological factor here was to posture in a brilliant display of perceived strength so that the enemy would second guess itself and submit or back-off. The guns the soldiers carried weren't ever directly meant to be used unless of course the posturing failed. Same thing as poison. Both poison and bullets come sparingly, so the frog or the person has to always use discretion when choosing to use it's lethal element against it's threat. The colors warn you of this. Now of course, evolution has interlopers and some nonpoisonous animals like the king snake use bright colors to fool and posture other critters into the belief that they are poisonous when as a matter of fact, they are not.

Answer 2

poisn arrow frog