# Frogs & Toads > Dart Frogs (Dendrobatidae) > General Discussion >  Phantasmal poison dart frog in flower shop

## Emma Louise

In the local flower shop across the road from me, they recieved a deliery from columbria which they found a poison dart frog in one of the flowers. The delivery had been sent to holland which was delivered to Blackburn, England in a refidgerated van!
After discovered it has been sent to the local zoo. 

Was in the local paper and amazed me lol they described it as brown and yellow and said they thought it was a phantasmal poison dart frog, But from the pictures they took of the actual frog, it looks completely different to me.

What do you think?

http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/8945/22472875.jpg

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## John911

Some kind of reed frog?

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## John Clare

Emma Louise, you are absolutely correct.  It's a tree frog of some sort.  The cold conditions in a van would more than likely kill a dart frog anyhow.

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## JimO

The article I read had a stock photo of a phantasmal specimen, but the photo of the actual frog was taken from a distance and you could only see its bottom.  It didn't look like any dart frog I've ever seen.

It's like a few months ago down here where the front page story showed a large rattlesnake that the animal "rescue" people had stabbed through the head with a gig.  They claimed it was 12 ft, and then 15 ft, and the last version I saw making its way on the internet had it at a world record length of over 18 ft.  The photos were taken using to old fisherman's trick where the snake was held towards the camera much closer than the guy holding it.  Based on the size of the gig head (we do a lot of flounder gigging down here), my guess is that it was around 8 ft long - a big snake for sure, but not big enough for the front page.  I was bummed that they killed it.  That snake was probably 20+ years old.

My point is that the media loves it when something poisonous or large came "inches away" from killing someone and they whip up the exaggeration frenzy to appeal to people who thrive on that stuff who will shout you down when you get all scientific about it.  Oh, and one of the guys holding it might have actually been Elvis Presley.

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## Emma Louise

I knew as soon as i saw it that it was not the frog they claimed it was.
And i totally agree! they have just made a story out of it, giving false information for a 'good' story .... cant fool a frog geek tho  :Cool: 

What did anger me tho, they called a "specialist" to take the frog ... the local college that do courses in animal care ... but the animal care they learn about are horses and woodland animals and things like that not exotic frogs! 

At least it will have a happy home in a zoo where they will have more knowledge to care for the little frog.

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## Kurt

Aren't the eastern diamondbacls protescted by law? Thats the only rattlesnake that gets that big.

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