Endangered due to habitat loss/fragmentation, road mortality, agricultural machinery mortality, predators, poaching, invasive plants, degraded water quality, emerging diseases.

Grow to between 5.5 and 7.9 inches in straight carapace length.

They have soft, dense fur covering their body to keep them warm in their high altitude environment, including a bushy tail that helps with balance and acts as a blanket. They are approximately the size of a housecat and resemble a raccoon more than a giant panda.

Depending on where these dart frogs live, the color of them can vary. The most common natural colorations are the metallic golden color, their namesake, and a minty green. Some of the frogs also have small, black marks on their noses and toes, but this isn't always the case! . When they are little, they are fully black except a small pair of golden stripes down the back and belly of the frogs, as they mature, their stripes spread over their body and they take on their full coloration. They have 4 unwebbed toes on each foot (they don't swim like other frogs!) and a bony, teeth-like plate in their upper jaw (unlike most other dart frogs).