Western North American Destroying Angel

Fungi > Agarics

The Western North American Destroying Angel (Amanita ocreata), also famously known along the Pacific coast as the death angel, is an infamous, exquisitely beautiful, and lethally poisonous agaric basidiomycete fungus belonging to the family Amanitaceae. Endemic to the...

Autumn Crocus

Plants > Flowering Plants

The Autumn Crocus (Colchicum autumnale), affectionately and historically known as meadow saffron, naked ladies, or mystical son-before-the-father, is an extraordinary, highly toxic perennial bulbous geophyte belonging to the family Colchicaceae. Despite its deceptive...

Rosary Pea

Plants > Flowering Plants

The Rosary Pea (Abrus precatorius), also globally renowned as jequirity bean, crab’s eye, prayer bead, or Buddhist rosary bead, is a prolific, slender perennial climbing woody vine belonging to the legume family Fabaceae. Indigenous to tropical Asia and northern...

Mimic Poison Frog

Amphibians > Frogs & Toads

The Mimic Poison Frog (Ranitomeya imitator), also celebrated in evolutionary biology as the Poison Dart Mimic, is a dazzling, diminutive dendrobatid anuran endemic to the lush rainforest foothills of north-central Peru. Measuring barely two centimeters in length, this...

Side-striped Palm Pit Viper

Reptiles > Snakes

The Side-striped Palm Pit Viper (Bothriechis lateralis), known in Costa Rica as the lora venenosa or víbora de palma verde, is a magnificent, bright emerald-green arboreal pit viper indigenous to the cloud-shrouded montane forests of Costa Rica and western Panama....