WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.540 So welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we're 00:00:03.540 --> 00:00:05.660 doing something a little bit different. A little 00:00:05.660 --> 00:00:07.940 different, yeah. Yeah, usually we grab a massive 00:00:07.940 --> 00:00:09.859 stack of articles or a book, you know, heavy 00:00:09.859 --> 00:00:12.119 research papers and we synthesize it all for 00:00:12.119 --> 00:00:16.559 you. But today... Today we are looking at a ghost. 00:00:16.820 --> 00:00:18.839 A ghost. I mean, I thought we were looking at 00:00:18.839 --> 00:00:21.179 an amphibian today. We are. We are looking at 00:00:21.179 --> 00:00:23.699 a frog, but it really feels like a ghost. Right. 00:00:23.820 --> 00:00:27.100 We're diving into the curious case of this creature 00:00:27.100 --> 00:00:30.399 that seems to exist almost entirely as like just 00:00:30.399 --> 00:00:32.700 data points rather than a flesh and blood animal. 00:00:33.140 --> 00:00:36.659 It's the Papyrana salibensis. Ah, right. The 00:00:36.659 --> 00:00:38.600 salibis frog. And you're totally right. It is 00:00:38.600 --> 00:00:41.939 a bit of a phantom. The sort material for this 00:00:41.939 --> 00:00:44.200 deep dive is, and I say this with total affection 00:00:44.200 --> 00:00:46.939 for the platform, it's a Wikipedia stub. A stub, 00:00:47.100 --> 00:00:49.340 which for anyone who doesn't know is basically 00:00:49.340 --> 00:00:52.359 Wikipedia speak for we started this page, but 00:00:52.359 --> 00:00:54.460 we got tired and went to lunch. Essentially, 00:00:54.619 --> 00:00:57.159 yeah. It's a placeholder. It's the site explicitly 00:00:57.159 --> 00:00:59.399 admitting that the entry is incomplete. But, 00:00:59.679 --> 00:01:01.479 and I think this is why I love this topic so 00:01:01.479 --> 00:01:04.180 much, even a stub can tell you a massive amount 00:01:04.180 --> 00:01:06.409 about the history of science. If you know how 00:01:06.409 --> 00:01:08.250 to read it. Exactly. If you know how to look 00:01:08.250 --> 00:01:11.569 at the metadata, it's an exploration of a specific 00:01:11.569 --> 00:01:15.489 true frog that's endemic to Indonesia. Right. 00:01:15.590 --> 00:01:17.810 So the mission today isn't just to learn about 00:01:17.810 --> 00:01:21.010 a frog. It's to learn about how we actually catalog 00:01:21.010 --> 00:01:23.390 the natural world and more importantly, where 00:01:23.390 --> 00:01:26.609 the massive gaps are. Because this frog, it's 00:01:26.609 --> 00:01:28.709 been in our scientific system for nearly 150 00:01:28.709 --> 00:01:32.290 years and we still barely know it. It is the 00:01:32.290 --> 00:01:34.469 perfect case study in the difference between 00:01:34.469 --> 00:01:38.129 having data and having knowledge. We have data 00:01:38.129 --> 00:01:42.390 on Paparana celibensis. I am just not sure how 00:01:42.390 --> 00:01:44.510 much knowledge we actually have. Yeah, that makes 00:01:44.510 --> 00:01:47.489 sense. So let's set the scene first. Where are 00:01:47.489 --> 00:01:49.790 we? We are in Sulawesi, which is historically 00:01:49.790 --> 00:01:52.150 known as Celebes. It's a massive, incredibly 00:01:52.150 --> 00:01:54.510 diverse island in Indonesia. Okay, so let's start 00:01:54.510 --> 00:01:57.000 with the name, Paparana celibensis. It sounds 00:01:57.000 --> 00:01:59.480 super elegant. It sounds established. But the 00:01:59.480 --> 00:02:01.260 funny thing is, if you were looking for this 00:02:01.260 --> 00:02:04.019 exact frog just a few years ago, you wouldn't 00:02:04.019 --> 00:02:05.799 have found that name at all. No, you wouldn't 00:02:05.799 --> 00:02:08.020 have because the name papyrana is actually quite 00:02:08.020 --> 00:02:10.800 new. It was only assigned to this frog in 2020. 00:02:11.240 --> 00:02:15.159 2020. So this frog basically got a rebrand during 00:02:15.159 --> 00:02:17.939 the pandemic. In a way, yeah. The reclassification 00:02:17.939 --> 00:02:22.180 came from a researcher named Frost. But to understand 00:02:22.180 --> 00:02:25.319 why that 2020 shift matters, we really have to 00:02:25.319 --> 00:02:27.379 go back way further. We have to go back to the 00:02:27.379 --> 00:02:30.960 original discovery. Which was 1872. 1872, exactly. 00:02:31.500 --> 00:02:33.919 Described by Wilhelm Peters. Wilhelm Peters. 00:02:34.159 --> 00:02:36.219 Yeah, he was a German naturalist, kind of a titan 00:02:36.219 --> 00:02:39.060 in the field of herpetology back then. He describes 00:02:39.060 --> 00:02:41.759 this frog, but he obviously doesn't call it Pepperana. 00:02:41.900 --> 00:02:44.020 Right. Looking at the history here, the notes 00:02:44.020 --> 00:02:46.620 say he originally called it Rana celibensis. 00:02:47.240 --> 00:02:49.740 Or wait, there's another one, Limnodytes syllabensis. 00:02:49.800 --> 00:02:51.520 Yeah, Rana is the really important one there. 00:02:51.580 --> 00:02:53.419 Because for the longest time, basically for the 00:02:53.419 --> 00:02:56.240 entire 20th century, Rana was what biologists 00:02:56.240 --> 00:02:59.719 call a wastebasket taxon. A wastebasket taxon. 00:02:59.719 --> 00:03:02.020 Okay, that does not sound very scientific. No, 00:03:02.120 --> 00:03:04.159 it really doesn't. But it's exactly what it sounds 00:03:04.159 --> 00:03:06.240 like. Imagine you're cleaning your house. Okay. 00:03:06.379 --> 00:03:07.800 And you have that one drawer in the kitchen. 00:03:08.139 --> 00:03:10.900 If you find a rubber band, a weird battery, a 00:03:10.900 --> 00:03:12.680 paper clip, and you just don't know where they 00:03:12.680 --> 00:03:14.960 go. You throw them in the junk drawer? You throw 00:03:14.960 --> 00:03:17.580 them in the junk drawer. In the world of frogs, 00:03:17.900 --> 00:03:21.039 Rana was the junk drawer. If a biologist out 00:03:21.039 --> 00:03:23.300 in the field found a frog that looked like a 00:03:23.300 --> 00:03:26.439 standard frog. Like smooth skin, jumps well. 00:03:26.659 --> 00:03:30.039 Yeah, smooth skin, lays eggs in water. But it 00:03:30.039 --> 00:03:31.819 wasn't obviously a toad or a tree frog. They 00:03:31.819 --> 00:03:35.990 would just say, eh. So for over 100 years, our 00:03:35.990 --> 00:03:38.770 friend the Celebes frog was just sitting in the 00:03:38.770 --> 00:03:41.210 junk drawer with thousands of other completely 00:03:41.210 --> 00:03:45.449 random frogs. Pretty much. And they were classified 00:03:45.449 --> 00:03:47.949 by their morphology, which is just a fancy way 00:03:47.949 --> 00:03:49.650 of saying it. By what they look like. It looked 00:03:49.650 --> 00:03:51.750 like a generic frog, so it got the generic true 00:03:51.750 --> 00:03:54.770 frog label in the family Ranidae. Ranidae, right, 00:03:54.889 --> 00:03:57.069 which is the true frogs. Exactly. And during 00:03:57.069 --> 00:03:59.150 that time, it also had a phase where it was called 00:03:59.150 --> 00:04:01.349 Hylauronacellabensis, right? Yeah, there was 00:04:01.349 --> 00:04:03.090 a lot of shuffling. It bounced around as scientists 00:04:03.090 --> 00:04:04.770 tried to organize the junk drawer a little bit 00:04:04.770 --> 00:04:07.590 better. Hylauron was one of those attempts. Okay, 00:04:07.650 --> 00:04:10.409 so then came the 2020 update from Frost. What 00:04:10.409 --> 00:04:12.629 actually changed? Like, did the frog suddenly 00:04:12.629 --> 00:04:15.310 change? No, the frog didn't change at all. Our 00:04:15.310 --> 00:04:17.470 tools changed. We finally stopped just looking 00:04:17.470 --> 00:04:19.129 at the shape of the leg or the webbing of the 00:04:19.129 --> 00:04:22.189 toes, and we started looking at genetics. DNA 00:04:22.189 --> 00:04:26.189 sequencing. Ah, okay. So the move to Pepperana 00:04:26.189 --> 00:04:28.029 isn't just someone swapping a label on a jar. 00:04:28.329 --> 00:04:30.949 It's us realizing that genetically, this creature 00:04:30.949 --> 00:04:34.050 is distinct. Precisely. It's like finding out 00:04:34.050 --> 00:04:35.550 that the guy you always thought was your first 00:04:35.550 --> 00:04:37.790 cousin is actually a much more distant relation. 00:04:38.630 --> 00:04:41.550 Papyrana implies a very specific evolutionary 00:04:41.550 --> 00:04:44.550 lineage that is distinct from the classic Rana. 00:04:44.709 --> 00:04:47.009 It's a much more precise address in the tree 00:04:47.009 --> 00:04:49.790 of life. Exactly. Speaking of addresses, let's 00:04:49.790 --> 00:04:52.550 talk about where this frog actually lives on 00:04:52.550 --> 00:04:54.670 the ground. The name obviously gives it away 00:04:54.670 --> 00:04:57.540 a bit. Celebensis. Right. Named after Celebes, 00:04:57.639 --> 00:05:00.040 which again is Sulawesi. And the source specifically 00:05:00.040 --> 00:05:03.920 says it is endemic to Sulawesi. Yes. And endemic 00:05:03.920 --> 00:05:06.959 is a really heavy word in biology. It means it 00:05:06.959 --> 00:05:09.920 is found there and only there. It didn't migrate 00:05:09.920 --> 00:05:12.040 there from somewhere else. It evolved there. 00:05:12.180 --> 00:05:14.879 It is intimately tied to that specific geography. 00:05:15.619 --> 00:05:19.040 And Sulawesi is found in Indonesia, but I want 00:05:19.040 --> 00:05:21.379 to drill down into the specific location data 00:05:21.379 --> 00:05:23.300 provided in this stub, because honestly, this 00:05:23.300 --> 00:05:24.899 is where I started to get a little bit skeptical. 00:05:25.120 --> 00:05:27.519 Skeptical, why? Well, it lists the elevation 00:05:27.519 --> 00:05:29.899 range for the frog. It says it has been observed 00:05:29.899 --> 00:05:35.420 between 326 meters and 475 meters above sea level. 00:05:35.560 --> 00:05:41.300 Okay. 326 meters, not 300. Not around 350, 326. 00:05:41.579 --> 00:05:44.180 That is just suspiciously specific, isn't it? 00:05:44.240 --> 00:05:46.379 It feels like false precision. Oh, that's a really 00:05:46.379 --> 00:05:49.019 sharp observation. Yes. When you see a number. 00:05:49.579 --> 00:05:52.819 Like 326 meters in a biological survey, you aren't 00:05:52.819 --> 00:05:54.699 actually seeing the boundaries of the animal's 00:05:54.699 --> 00:05:56.699 habitat. What am I seeing? You are seeing the 00:05:56.699 --> 00:05:59.100 logbook of the scientist. Ah. So it literally 00:05:59.100 --> 00:06:01.259 just means Steve, the biologist, was standing 00:06:01.259 --> 00:06:04.399 exactly at 326 meters when he caught one. That 00:06:04.399 --> 00:06:06.139 is exactly what it means. It's a single data 00:06:06.139 --> 00:06:07.939 point that is masquerading as a heart boundary. 00:06:08.079 --> 00:06:10.920 If that exact same frog had hopped two meters 00:06:10.920 --> 00:06:14.100 downhill to 324 meters, the official data would 00:06:14.100 --> 00:06:16.220 be different. But because nobody caught it there, 00:06:16.300 --> 00:06:19.629 the official record forever starts at 326. Wow. 00:06:19.889 --> 00:06:22.769 It really highlights how thin the data actually 00:06:22.769 --> 00:06:24.790 is, doesn't it? Like, we act like we have this 00:06:24.790 --> 00:06:27.790 incredibly comprehensive map of nature, but really 00:06:27.790 --> 00:06:30.009 we just have a few random pins stuck in a board. 00:06:30.410 --> 00:06:34.089 We do. However, to be fair, that range, 326 to 00:06:34.089 --> 00:06:37.009 1075, it does tell us something broad that is 00:06:37.009 --> 00:06:39.949 useful. Which is? It tells us this is a lowland 00:06:39.949 --> 00:06:42.569 to mid -montane species. It's not a beach frog 00:06:42.569 --> 00:06:44.910 living down at a zero meter sea level. And it's 00:06:44.910 --> 00:06:47.389 not some high alpine specialist. It likes that 00:06:47.389 --> 00:06:50.029 middle ground. The humid forested slope. Right. 00:06:50.089 --> 00:06:52.829 It's a lowland forest species. But the habitat 00:06:52.829 --> 00:06:54.670 description has a little twist in it that I found 00:06:54.670 --> 00:06:57.029 really interesting. It says it occurs in lowland 00:06:57.029 --> 00:06:59.709 forest, which makes sense. But then it adds... 00:06:59.720 --> 00:07:02.360 that it also occurs in disturbed habitats. And 00:07:02.360 --> 00:07:04.399 that is arguably the most important phrase in 00:07:04.399 --> 00:07:06.939 the entire article. Disturbed habitats. Because 00:07:06.939 --> 00:07:09.600 to me, a disturbed habitat sounds like a construction 00:07:09.600 --> 00:07:12.399 site or a place where someone bulldozed a logging 00:07:12.399 --> 00:07:15.000 road. That is exactly what it is. It means logging 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:17.680 areas, agricultural edges, places right near 00:07:17.680 --> 00:07:20.560 human villages. In conservation biology, we usually 00:07:20.560 --> 00:07:23.839 divide animals into two broad camps. The specialists 00:07:23.839 --> 00:07:26.420 and the generalists. The specialists being the 00:07:26.420 --> 00:07:29.939 divas. The divas, yes. The ones who need pristine 00:07:29.939 --> 00:07:33.720 ancient canopy cover with highly specific humidity 00:07:33.720 --> 00:07:35.839 levels. And if you change anything, they just 00:07:35.839 --> 00:07:38.540 vanish. Then the generalists. The generalists 00:07:38.540 --> 00:07:41.139 are the survivors. The raccoons, the pigeons, 00:07:41.300 --> 00:07:44.079 the rats. The animals that look at humans cutting 00:07:44.079 --> 00:07:46.439 down trees and say, oh, you put up a banana plantation. 00:07:46.560 --> 00:07:49.470 Cool, I can work with that. So Papyrana celibensis 00:07:49.470 --> 00:07:51.870 is basically the raccoon of the Sulawesi frog 00:07:51.870 --> 00:07:55.589 world. In spirit, maybe. The fact that it thrives 00:07:55.589 --> 00:07:58.569 in disturbed habitats suggests it is highly resilient. 00:07:58.790 --> 00:08:01.329 It doesn't need a perfect, untouched Eden to 00:08:01.329 --> 00:08:04.180 survive. It can handle the mess that humans make. 00:08:04.339 --> 00:08:06.480 And I guess that resilience probably explains 00:08:06.480 --> 00:08:08.779 the next data point we have, which is the conservation 00:08:08.779 --> 00:08:12.800 status. The IUCN Red List reads it as least concern. 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:14.959 Which is basically the gold star of conservation. 00:08:15.160 --> 00:08:18.019 It means we are not currently worried about this 00:08:18.019 --> 00:08:20.660 species going extinct. But, and I feel like I'm 00:08:20.660 --> 00:08:22.500 just being the total pessimist today. I have 00:08:22.500 --> 00:08:24.660 to question that rating too. You're questioning 00:08:24.660 --> 00:08:26.819 the least concern rating. Well, look at the citation 00:08:26.819 --> 00:08:30.300 for it. The assessment is credited to Iskandar 00:08:30.300 --> 00:08:33.720 and Mumpuni. And the date of that assessment? 00:08:35.240 --> 00:08:39.820 2004. Yes. I see where you're going. 2004. That 00:08:39.820 --> 00:08:43.340 is over 20 years ago. Is it really safe to assume 00:08:43.340 --> 00:08:46.200 a species is of least concern based entirely 00:08:46.200 --> 00:08:49.960 on field data from two decades ago? That right 00:08:49.960 --> 00:08:52.799 there is a massive problem in conservation biology 00:08:52.799 --> 00:08:54.980 right now. We actually have a term for it. Data 00:08:54.980 --> 00:08:57.879 decay. A decay? Yeah. The assessment was completely 00:08:57.879 --> 00:09:00.860 accurate in 2004, but think about how much a 00:09:00.860 --> 00:09:03.080 place like Indonesia has changed since 2004. 00:09:03.820 --> 00:09:06.840 I mean, massive deforestation, palm oil expansion, 00:09:07.259 --> 00:09:09.980 climate change. Exactly. Sulawesi has seen really 00:09:09.980 --> 00:09:12.220 significant habitat loss in the last 20 years. 00:09:12.379 --> 00:09:14.639 So while the frog is resilient because we know 00:09:14.639 --> 00:09:17.259 it likes those disturbed habitats, there is always 00:09:17.259 --> 00:09:19.539 a limit to how much disturbance even a tough 00:09:19.539 --> 00:09:22.379 survivor can take. So least concern might actually 00:09:22.379 --> 00:09:24.559 mean least concern as far as we knew back in 00:09:24.559 --> 00:09:27.460 2004. It's a snapshot from the past. It is likely 00:09:27.460 --> 00:09:30.259 still doing OK because of that generalist nature. 00:09:30.379 --> 00:09:32.299 But we really can't be 100 percent sure without 00:09:32.299 --> 00:09:34.600 a completely new field. Which brings us back 00:09:34.600 --> 00:09:36.860 to the stub nature of this whole Wikipedia article. 00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:39.659 We have these highly specific dates. We have 00:09:39.659 --> 00:09:41.639 the elevation down to the single meter. We have 00:09:41.639 --> 00:09:44.179 the complex taxonomy history. But when you look 00:09:44.179 --> 00:09:47.340 for the actual description of the frog. The morphology. 00:09:47.480 --> 00:09:49.360 Yeah, the morphology. What does it actually look 00:09:49.360 --> 00:09:51.299 like? I'm reading the text and it's just it's 00:09:51.299 --> 00:09:53.960 not there. It is completely absent. There is 00:09:53.960 --> 00:09:57.559 literally no section that says it is green with 00:09:57.559 --> 00:10:01.830 black spots or it is brown and bumpy. If I was 00:10:01.830 --> 00:10:05.149 walking in a forest in Sulawesi right now at 00:10:05.149 --> 00:10:09.009 exactly 326 meters elevation and I picked up 00:10:09.009 --> 00:10:11.690 a frog, this entire Wikipedia page would be completely 00:10:11.690 --> 00:10:14.070 useless to me in identifying it. It's what I 00:10:14.070 --> 00:10:16.210 call the digital ghost problem. Oh. We have all 00:10:16.210 --> 00:10:18.210 the metadata, but we somehow lost the picture. 00:10:18.370 --> 00:10:20.690 How does that even happen? How can we have a 00:10:20.690 --> 00:10:24.929 fully updated 2020 taxonomic name and a sequence 00:10:24.929 --> 00:10:27.850 gene, but no physical description on the page? 00:10:28.049 --> 00:10:30.110 It is a direct byproduct of how modern database. 00:10:30.220 --> 00:10:32.759 work. If you look at the very bottom of the stub, 00:10:32.860 --> 00:10:34.980 did you see that massive block of links? Oh, 00:10:35.019 --> 00:10:36.980 yeah. The taxon bars. The taxon bars, right. 00:10:37.120 --> 00:10:39.679 It looks like a robot exploded. It's just NCBI, 00:10:39.899 --> 00:10:43.340 iNaturalist, IDIS, Wikidata, just alphabet soup. 00:10:43.539 --> 00:10:45.840 Those are all global biodiversity databases. 00:10:46.600 --> 00:10:49.080 And they all talk to each other. They share the 00:10:49.080 --> 00:10:52.240 identity of the frog, the unique ID number, the 00:10:52.240 --> 00:10:54.980 name Peperana celibensis, the family tree data. 00:10:55.980 --> 00:10:59.220 That specific type of information is very easy 00:10:59.220 --> 00:11:01.600 to scrape and replicate automatically across 00:11:01.600 --> 00:11:03.960 the Internet. So you're saying a bot built this 00:11:03.960 --> 00:11:06.419 Wikipedia page? A bot almost certainly built 00:11:06.419 --> 00:11:08.799 the skeleton of the page, yes. It pulled the 00:11:08.799 --> 00:11:11.220 taxonomy from one database, the location from 00:11:11.220 --> 00:11:14.039 another, and the 2004 conservation status from 00:11:14.039 --> 00:11:17.759 the IUCN. But a bot cannot read Wilhelm Peter's 00:11:17.759 --> 00:11:21.200 original 1872 German field notes and summarize 00:11:21.200 --> 00:11:23.440 the physical description into English for a general 00:11:23.440 --> 00:11:25.220 audience. Right. That requires a human being. 00:11:25.360 --> 00:11:27.139 That requires a human. And evidently, since the 00:11:27.139 --> 00:11:29.019 page was created, no human has actually gotten 00:11:29.019 --> 00:11:30.779 around to doing it yet. It's so fascinating. 00:11:30.899 --> 00:11:33.679 We have built this incredible, massive digital 00:11:33.679 --> 00:11:36.039 infrastructure to catalog every piece of life 00:11:36.039 --> 00:11:38.159 on Earth. We have the filing cabinet. We have 00:11:38.159 --> 00:11:40.039 the folders. The folders are labeled absolutely 00:11:40.039 --> 00:11:43.580 perfectly. But inside the folder. Empty pages. 00:11:43.879 --> 00:11:45.559 It really makes. It makes you wonder about the 00:11:45.559 --> 00:11:48.539 actual completeness of our knowledge. We tend 00:11:48.539 --> 00:11:50.279 to think that because something is on the Internet, 00:11:50.500 --> 00:11:53.000 it's known. It's the illusion of omniscience. 00:11:53.480 --> 00:11:56.580 We see a long list of Latin species names and 00:11:56.580 --> 00:11:58.919 we just assume we know what they are. But for 00:11:58.919 --> 00:12:01.700 a huge number of species, especially in places 00:12:01.700 --> 00:12:04.059 like the tropics, we effectively just have a 00:12:04.059 --> 00:12:07.460 name on a list. Wow. And honestly, Peperanus 00:12:07.460 --> 00:12:10.100 sullibensis is lucky. It actually got a 2020 00:12:10.100 --> 00:12:13.480 genetic update. Many species on these lists haven't 00:12:13.480 --> 00:12:15.960 been looked at by anyone since the 1800s. So 00:12:15.960 --> 00:12:18.440 if we zoom out and distill all this down, what 00:12:18.440 --> 00:12:21.159 is the actual story of this frog based on all 00:12:21.159 --> 00:12:24.279 these sources? It starts in 1872 with a German 00:12:24.279 --> 00:12:26.399 naturalist finding it. Right. Then it spends 00:12:26.399 --> 00:12:29.840 roughly 140 years just hiding in the Rana wastebasket. 00:12:29.980 --> 00:12:31.799 Sitting in the junk drawer. Sitting in the junk 00:12:31.799 --> 00:12:34.580 drawer. Then in 2004, some researchers check 00:12:34.580 --> 00:12:36.240 on it, find it hanging out in some disturbed 00:12:36.240 --> 00:12:38.639 forests and say, hey, you're doing. find least 00:12:38.639 --> 00:12:42.659 concern then in 2020 geneticists come along sequence 00:12:42.659 --> 00:12:45.240 its dna pull it out of the junk drawer and give 00:12:45.240 --> 00:12:48.580 it a shiny new name papyrana and now here we 00:12:48.580 --> 00:12:51.299 are today staring at a wikipedia stub that has 00:12:51.299 --> 00:12:54.039 all the bureaucratic administrative details but 00:12:54.039 --> 00:12:56.559 cannot even tell us if the frog is cute or ugly 00:12:56.559 --> 00:12:59.980 that is the perfect summary it's a creature defined 00:12:59.980 --> 00:13:02.740 way more by its bureaucratic history than its 00:13:02.740 --> 00:13:04.960 actual biology You know, there's something kind 00:13:04.960 --> 00:13:07.580 of poetic about those taxon bars. The article 00:13:07.580 --> 00:13:11.039 actually uses the phrase taxon bars with automatically 00:13:11.039 --> 00:13:14.120 added original combinations. That phrase really 00:13:14.120 --> 00:13:16.500 stuck with me. It is remarkably dry phrasing. 00:13:16.580 --> 00:13:19.159 It really is. It sounds so industrial, like we 00:13:19.159 --> 00:13:21.480 are literally manufacturing frogs in a plant. 00:13:21.659 --> 00:13:23.960 But it's actually just us trying desperately 00:13:23.960 --> 00:13:26.460 to keep track of nature before we lose it. Or 00:13:26.460 --> 00:13:29.500 before we forget what we've already found. I 00:13:29.500 --> 00:13:31.240 think that's the real danger here. We discover 00:13:31.240 --> 00:13:33.759 things and then they just get buried in the academic 00:13:33.759 --> 00:13:35.840 literature. Right. If that information doesn't 00:13:35.840 --> 00:13:38.080 make it to the surface to accessible places like 00:13:38.080 --> 00:13:40.340 Wikipedia, it effectively disappears for the 00:13:40.340 --> 00:13:42.960 general public. So Papyrana Salabensis is basically 00:13:42.960 --> 00:13:45.820 waiting for a hero. It really is. It's waiting 00:13:45.820 --> 00:13:47.740 for someone who has access to a university library 00:13:47.740 --> 00:13:51.159 or someone who's actually out in the field in 00:13:51.159 --> 00:13:54.980 Sulawesi to just log in and type a single sentence. 00:13:55.200 --> 00:13:58.970 The frog is brown. That is literally all we need 00:13:58.970 --> 00:14:01.429 to start. It sounds so simple when you say it 00:14:01.429 --> 00:14:04.429 like that. The frog is brown, but that one sentence 00:14:04.429 --> 00:14:07.330 completely bridges the gap between a sterile 00:14:07.330 --> 00:14:10.350 database entry and a living, breathing thing. 00:14:10.570 --> 00:14:12.649 Exactly. I do want to go back to the endemic 00:14:12.649 --> 00:14:14.809 part one more time before we wrap up today, because 00:14:14.809 --> 00:14:16.590 I feel like we might have glossed over the risk 00:14:16.590 --> 00:14:18.690 there a little bit. We said it's least concern, 00:14:18.789 --> 00:14:20.789 and we said it's highly resilient, but at the 00:14:20.789 --> 00:14:23.009 end of the day, it's still on an island. Yes. 00:14:23.230 --> 00:14:27.019 Island Biogeography 101. Islands are inherently 00:14:27.019 --> 00:14:29.720 fragile ecosystems. Because if something happens 00:14:29.720 --> 00:14:32.659 to Sulawesi, say a massive amphibian disease 00:14:32.659 --> 00:14:35.320 outbreak or a new invasive predator gets introduced 00:14:35.320 --> 00:14:38.179 or just catastrophic climate shifts, this frog 00:14:38.179 --> 00:14:40.120 has nowhere to run. It can't exactly hop across 00:14:40.120 --> 00:14:43.039 the ocean to Borneo. No, it can't. That is the 00:14:43.039 --> 00:14:46.440 double -edged sword of endemism. You are perfectly 00:14:46.440 --> 00:14:49.120 adapted to your specific home, but you are totally 00:14:49.120 --> 00:14:52.360 trapped in your home. And while papyrana is a 00:14:52.360 --> 00:14:55.559 survivor in disturbed habitats, every single 00:14:55.559 --> 00:14:58.440 species has a breaking point. It reminds me of 00:14:58.440 --> 00:15:01.139 those historical stories where you find a species 00:15:01.139 --> 00:15:04.879 that was common, common, common, and then just 00:15:04.879 --> 00:15:07.120 gone overnight. The passenger pigeon effect. 00:15:08.009 --> 00:15:10.110 Abundance does not always equal permanent safety. 00:15:10.389 --> 00:15:12.450 And when you're dealing with conservation data 00:15:12.450 --> 00:15:15.610 that is 20 years old, we are flying a bit blind. 00:15:15.730 --> 00:15:17.710 We are just assuming the abundance is still there. 00:15:17.830 --> 00:15:19.809 So the takeaway for you listening isn't just, 00:15:19.830 --> 00:15:22.110 hey, cool frog. It's really check your data. 00:15:22.210 --> 00:15:24.330 And update your records. Yeah. Science isn't 00:15:24.330 --> 00:15:26.409 a static thing. We tend to think of scientific 00:15:26.409 --> 00:15:28.309 facts as bricks. Once you lay them, they just 00:15:28.309 --> 00:15:31.149 stay there forever. But they don't. No. In taxonomy 00:15:31.149 --> 00:15:33.230 and conservation, facts are much more like plants. 00:15:33.429 --> 00:15:35.389 You have to water them. You have to prune them. 00:15:35.509 --> 00:15:37.590 You have to actively check if they're still alive. 00:15:37.850 --> 00:15:39.950 The fact that Pepperonis syllabensis is least 00:15:39.950 --> 00:15:42.289 concern is a plant that literally hasn't been 00:15:42.289 --> 00:15:45.149 watered since 2004. That is a brilliant analogy. 00:15:45.389 --> 00:15:48.129 And I guess the genetic name change in 2020 was 00:15:48.129 --> 00:15:51.389 a bit of necessary pruning. Exactly. We pruned 00:15:51.389 --> 00:15:54.769 the Rana branch and we grafted it onto the much 00:15:54.769 --> 00:15:56.950 more accurate Pepperonis branch. Well, this has 00:15:56.950 --> 00:15:59.389 been a surprisingly deep dive for a source page 00:15:59.389 --> 00:16:02.289 that literally only has four sentences of text. 00:16:04.240 --> 00:16:06.460 often hide the deepest secrets. Oh, look at you 00:16:06.460 --> 00:16:08.600 getting philosophical at the end here. I try. 00:16:08.860 --> 00:16:11.279 But it's true. We started with a name that sounded 00:16:11.279 --> 00:16:14.000 like a witness protection alias, and we ended 00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:17.179 up questioning the entire nature of digital knowledge 00:16:17.179 --> 00:16:19.600 and conservation. And we managed to do all of 00:16:19.600 --> 00:16:21.000 that without even needing to know what color 00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:23.440 the frog actually is. Oh, I am still absolutely 00:16:23.440 --> 00:16:26.279 dying to know. So if you are listening to this 00:16:26.279 --> 00:16:28.539 and you happen to know what Papyrana celibensis 00:16:28.539 --> 00:16:31.299 looks like, if you have a photo, a field sketch, 00:16:31.539 --> 00:16:34.200 even a doodle, please, for the love of science, 00:16:34.399 --> 00:16:37.279 upload it to the stub. Be the citation you want 00:16:37.279 --> 00:16:39.340 to see in the world. I love that. Be the citation 00:16:39.340 --> 00:16:41.360 you want to see in the world. It's true, though. 00:16:41.419 --> 00:16:44.799 We totally rely on these volunteer armies to 00:16:44.799 --> 00:16:47.720 maintain our collective digital knowledge. This 00:16:47.720 --> 00:16:50.679 stub is literally a cry for help from the database. 00:16:51.080 --> 00:16:54.080 So here's a final provocative thought to chew 00:16:54.080 --> 00:16:57.120 on today as we close out. We live in the information 00:16:57.120 --> 00:16:59.820 age. We carry the sum of human knowledge around 00:16:59.820 --> 00:17:02.500 in our pockets every single day. But when you 00:17:02.500 --> 00:17:04.359 really peel back the layers, how much of that 00:17:04.359 --> 00:17:06.880 knowledge is just scaffolding? Right. How many 00:17:06.880 --> 00:17:09.759 other papyrana celibensis entries are out there 00:17:09.759 --> 00:17:12.559 right now? Just names on a digital list waiting 00:17:12.559 --> 00:17:15.259 for a human to actually give them a story. It 00:17:15.259 --> 00:17:17.640 definitely suggests that our map of the natural 00:17:17.640 --> 00:17:20.359 world is much sketchier than we would ever like 00:17:20.359 --> 00:17:23.339 to admit. The map is not the territory. And the 00:17:23.339 --> 00:17:26.579 stub is not the frog. You said. All right. That 00:17:26.579 --> 00:17:28.640 is it for this deep dive. Go check out a stub 00:17:28.640 --> 00:17:30.579 today. Maybe fill in a blank for us. We'll see 00:17:30.579 --> 00:17:31.019 you next time.