By Sasha of Bank Street School For Children, NYC.

Interview

Here we are with Mr. Poison de Arrow Frog. Our reporter Pierre de la France will be interviewing the frog.

Pierre: Hello and welcome to Frogs Daily , the newspaper that brings you the news on frogs night and day . We are here interviewing a poison arrow frog. As you know every day we pick a new frog to interview. Today we are talking to Mr. Poison de Arrow Frog, the hippest frog of the rain forest. Now Mr. Frog, how do you feel about the tension with all the animals eating each other?

PAF: Well to tell you the truth I don't feel it at all. You see the other animals don't like eating us.

Pierre: I would eat your legs any time- Why don't they eat you?

PAF: You shouldn't even try eating my legs, for the same reason the other animals of the rain forest shouldn't. I have poison in my body, so if you were to eat me you would get sick, and so would any thing else that tried to eat me. That is why I don't feel the tension in the rain forest floors.

Pierre: Well we heard a rumor going around that some of the males carry the babies on their backs, throw them in the water and watch them swim. If the babies don't know how to swim they die, is this true?

PAF: Partly. The part about males carrying the babies to the water is true but not the part about throwing them in. We help them learn how to swim. You know we can swim really well with our long legs and arms.

Pierre: I heard that you were going to be staring in a movie. True or not true?

PAF: Yes. It's called James Bond the Frog , I will be James Bond. Before you ask, they picked me because they said I could move fast. I can stick to stuff, climb up walls, and stand upside down on the ceiling - the way James Bond should. They thought it would be great not to pay for suction cups, because my feet are already like suction cups.

Pierre: Oh. I like your suit, do they come in any other colors? I would like one.

PAF: YES. Green, blue, red, and yellow. I think that it's very fashionable to have black dots on our suits.

Pierre: One more thing. In your frog species, is there someone in charge of all the frogs?

PAF: No. We travel around in groups of 5-6, nobody leads though.

Pierre: What is the size difference between the male and female?

PAF: Well, um the male is slightly smaller then the female- BUT you can't tell unless we are side by side.

Pierre: Are you endangered in any way?

PAF: Well are habitat is. Also we are used for a thing called pet trade. We are picked from the rain forest and sold to people for pets. Few survive, most die.

Pierre: Well that is all the time we have now. Next week we will be interviewing: Tree de Frog. Thank you very much Poison De Arrow Frog, and we hope to be seeing that flick of yours next spring.

PAF: Thank you for having me, Pierre.

Return To: School For Children Environmental Science

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