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Kenyah native collecting the poison from an upas tree trunk in Sarawak, Borneo

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The latex of the upas tree (Antiaris toxicari) contains intensely toxic cardenolides, including a cardiac glycoside named antiarin that is used as a toxin for arrows, darts, and blowdarts in Southeast Asian cultures. The concentrate is applied by dipping the darts used in sumpit blowguns employed for hunting and warfare, sometimes mixed with Strychnos ignatii for arrow poison. The Kenyah people are indigenous, Austronesian-speaking people of Borneo. Sarawak, a Malaysian state on Borneo, stretches along the island’s northwest coast, including many beaches on the South China Sea. (Courtesy of the Wellcome Collection, London, England. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International [CC BY 4.0] License, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0. Photograph edited by Dr. Douglas J Lanska.)