Question: What is the most poisonous animal in the world, where does it live, does it have any predators or is it too poisonous to have a predator?

Claire Donald answered on 19 Jun 2018:

I’m sure you know that there is a difference between being venomous and poisonous. Venom is injected into a wound (like from a snake bite) while poison is ingested or transferred by touch. Sometimes this means that people get confused between venomous and poisonous animals. The most venomous animal is believed to be a marine snail! Some species hunt fish so they need a potent, fast acting venom to stop the fish getting away from the slow moving snail. They can then devour the fish with their teeth… Freaky!

To answer your actual question, the most poisonous animal is believed to be poison dart frogs. As the name suggests, they have been used to make poison darts by native hunters. They live in the rainforests of South America and are no larger than 6cm long. Despite being so small, 1 frog can produce enough poison to kill 10 grown men. The golden poison frog has poison glands on its skin so touching it can be enough to kill you. They do try to warn you that they are poisonous as they are very brightly coloured. This should be enough to deter any predators but if one does take a bite out of the frog, they don’t last long afterwards. Even the tadpoles are poisonous!