The strawberry poison dart frog lays a small clutch on the forest floor. Once the eggs hatch, the female lets a single tadpole wriggle onto her back and carries it up into the canopy, depositing it in the water that collects in a bromeliad leaf axil. She repeats the journey until each tadpole has its own private nursery.
Those nurseries hold almost nothing edible. The female returns every few days, backs into the water, and deposits unfertilised eggs that the tadpole eats. This trophic egg feeding continues for roughly six to eight weeks until metamorphosis. The genus name Oophaga means egg eater, and the dependence is obligate: tadpoles denied maternal eggs do not survive to froglets.
The frog's own toxicity is not manufactured internally. Its alkaloids are sequestered from a diet of mites and ants, and captive-raised animals fed cultured fruit flies are effectively non-toxic. The species also does not appear among the frogs traditionally used to poison blowgun darts, despite the common name applied broadly to the family.