WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.439 Okay, so, usually when we prep for these deep 00:00:02.439 --> 00:00:04.820 dives, I am wading through just this massive 00:00:04.820 --> 00:00:07.639 mountain of PDFs. Oh yeah, the usual suspects. 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:10.279 Right, you know the drill. Peer -reviewed studies, 00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:13.119 news articles, maybe a 50 -page manifesto if 00:00:13.119 --> 00:00:17.000 we get lucky. But for today, the stack is thin. 00:00:17.660 --> 00:00:21.230 I mean... suspiciously thin. It is practically 00:00:21.230 --> 00:00:23.710 non -existent, honestly. We are looking at a 00:00:23.710 --> 00:00:27.350 topic that consists of a few sparse taxonomic 00:00:27.350 --> 00:00:30.170 records, some dates from the jazz age, and a 00:00:30.170 --> 00:00:32.090 Wikipedia entry that is literally classified 00:00:32.090 --> 00:00:35.030 as a stub. Which is pretty right for us. It is. 00:00:35.070 --> 00:00:37.009 And honestly, that's exactly why I wanted to 00:00:37.009 --> 00:00:38.929 do this one. We are always talking to you, the 00:00:38.929 --> 00:00:41.630 listener, about what science knows. But today, 00:00:41.750 --> 00:00:43.469 I want to talk about a glitch in the matrix. 00:00:43.710 --> 00:00:45.649 I want to talk about what science forgot. It's 00:00:45.649 --> 00:00:48.130 a really fascinating exercise because usually 00:00:48.130 --> 00:00:50.390 we analyze the data, right? Today, we are effectively 00:00:50.390 --> 00:00:52.590 analyzing the silence. We are looking at the 00:00:52.590 --> 00:00:54.890 negative space in the library of biology to see 00:00:54.890 --> 00:00:56.929 what shape it makes. And that shape is a frog. 00:00:57.909 --> 00:01:01.109 Specifically, the mimic tree frog. Ah, yes. Hyla 00:01:01.109 --> 00:01:04.400 imitator. Or... If we are being rigorous about 00:01:04.400 --> 00:01:06.939 the source text, and we really should be, it 00:01:06.939 --> 00:01:09.599 is quote unquote Hyla imitator. Yeah, we definitely 00:01:09.599 --> 00:01:11.560 have to talk about the punctuation there. Yeah. 00:01:11.640 --> 00:01:13.280 Because that was the very first thing that jumped 00:01:13.280 --> 00:01:16.239 out at me. Hard to miss. Right. So in the amphibian 00:01:16.239 --> 00:01:18.579 species of the world database, which for anyone 00:01:18.579 --> 00:01:21.719 who doesn't know, is like the gold standard hosted 00:01:21.719 --> 00:01:25.060 by the American Museum of Natural History. The 00:01:25.060 --> 00:01:29.159 genus name Hyla is written inside quotation marks. 00:01:29.719 --> 00:01:32.439 Like, scare quotes. It is not a typo. I can assure 00:01:32.439 --> 00:01:35.180 you of that. It looks so sarcastic, though. Like, 00:01:35.200 --> 00:01:36.700 the scientists are sitting there saying, yeah, 00:01:36.719 --> 00:01:38.659 sure, it's a hyla. Whatever you say, buddy. It 00:01:38.659 --> 00:01:40.459 really does look that way to a layperson. But 00:01:40.459 --> 00:01:43.140 in taxonomy, the actual science of classification, 00:01:43.319 --> 00:01:46.379 those quotes are a very loud, formal warning 00:01:46.379 --> 00:01:49.780 siren. Oh, warning siren. Yes. They signify that 00:01:49.780 --> 00:01:52.299 the species is inserta sadis within that group. 00:01:52.540 --> 00:01:54.810 Okay. Translation, please. It means that while 00:01:54.810 --> 00:01:57.310 it is currently parked in the Gemus Hyla, the 00:01:57.310 --> 00:02:00.189 herpetological community knows it does not actually 00:02:00.189 --> 00:02:02.950 belong there. So it's basically squatting. In 00:02:02.950 --> 00:02:05.590 a sense, yeah. It is pending a taxonomic resolution. 00:02:06.109 --> 00:02:08.610 The experts are essentially saying, look, we 00:02:08.610 --> 00:02:11.050 know this frog exists, we have a name for it, 00:02:11.129 --> 00:02:14.750 but we have absolutely no idea who its real family 00:02:14.750 --> 00:02:17.569 is. So we are just leaving it here until we figure 00:02:17.569 --> 00:02:20.650 it out. That seems, I don't know, it seems messy. 00:02:21.120 --> 00:02:24.419 I always imagined science as this rigid, perfectly 00:02:24.419 --> 00:02:27.319 organized filing cabinet. Oh, not even close. 00:02:27.560 --> 00:02:30.180 Right. But this feels like someone just shoved 00:02:30.180 --> 00:02:32.300 a loose paper into the miscellaneous folder and 00:02:32.300 --> 00:02:35.319 walked away for 100 years. That is a harsh but 00:02:35.319 --> 00:02:38.680 incredibly fair assessment of historical taxonomy. 00:02:39.120 --> 00:02:41.000 You have to remember, biological classification 00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:43.879 is always in flux. We have the broad strokes 00:02:43.879 --> 00:02:46.240 down, obviously. We know it is an animal. It's 00:02:46.240 --> 00:02:48.379 a chordate. It's an amphibian. We know it is 00:02:48.379 --> 00:02:50.439 in the order Anura, which are the frogs, and 00:02:50.439 --> 00:02:52.719 the family Hylidae. But the genus level is where 00:02:52.719 --> 00:02:55.379 it falls apart. Exactly. The genus is the immediate 00:02:55.379 --> 00:02:58.419 family, and this frog is effectively an orphan. 00:02:58.620 --> 00:03:00.900 It's a Jane Doe with a Latin name. That is a 00:03:00.900 --> 00:03:02.780 perfect way to put it. And the reason it is stranded 00:03:02.780 --> 00:03:05.680 there brings us right to the history. Because 00:03:05.680 --> 00:03:08.219 this is not a new discovery. No, not at all. 00:03:08.509 --> 00:03:10.430 This isn't something we found last week in a 00:03:10.430 --> 00:03:14.250 drone survey of the canopy. This frog has been 00:03:14.250 --> 00:03:17.289 on the books since 1921. Let's dig into that 00:03:17.289 --> 00:03:18.949 timeline, actually, because I think it explains 00:03:18.949 --> 00:03:21.610 a lot of the mess. The source material lists 00:03:21.610 --> 00:03:23.810 the original description by Thomas Barber and 00:03:23.810 --> 00:03:26.650 ER Dunn. Absolute legends in the field. 1921. 00:03:26.770 --> 00:03:28.610 I just want to pause on that date for a second. 00:03:28.949 --> 00:03:33.509 We are talking about a time before GPS, before 00:03:33.509 --> 00:03:37.469 DNA sequencing, before satellite imagery. Absolutely. 00:03:37.949 --> 00:03:39.949 When Barbara and Dunn were working, herpetology 00:03:39.949 --> 00:03:42.509 was a very rough game. You are trekking into 00:03:42.509 --> 00:03:45.169 the central Amazon, which, let's be clear, is 00:03:45.169 --> 00:03:47.090 an ecosystem the size of a continent. Right. 00:03:47.189 --> 00:03:49.469 It's incredibly hostile, dense with humidity, 00:03:49.770 --> 00:03:52.789 biting insects, diseases. You aren't out there 00:03:52.789 --> 00:03:55.310 taking high -res photos on a macro lens. You're 00:03:55.310 --> 00:03:57.349 just trying to survive. Pretty much. You are 00:03:57.349 --> 00:03:59.750 catching specimens, often by hand, euthanizing 00:03:59.750 --> 00:04:02.169 them and preserving them in jars of alcohol or 00:04:02.169 --> 00:04:05.330 formalin to ship back on a boat to a museum in 00:04:05.330 --> 00:04:07.770 the U .S. or Europe. So the quote -unquote data 00:04:07.770 --> 00:04:09.969 we have today basically comes from a jar that 00:04:09.969 --> 00:04:12.009 has been sitting on a shelf somewhere since the 00:04:12.009 --> 00:04:14.569 Harding administration. Most likely, yes. And 00:04:14.569 --> 00:04:16.870 that context is crucial for understanding the 00:04:16.870 --> 00:04:21.089 taxonomic mess. So in 1921, they named it Pelluticola 00:04:21.089 --> 00:04:24.990 imitator. Okay. Then in 1927, another prominent 00:04:24.990 --> 00:04:26.970 researcher named Parker looked at it and said, 00:04:27.069 --> 00:04:29.870 no, that looks like a hyla, and he moved it. 00:04:30.189 --> 00:04:32.269 And that's where the trail goes cold. That is 00:04:32.269 --> 00:04:35.110 where it freezes completely. But here's the thing 00:04:35.110 --> 00:04:37.269 that drives me absolutely crazy about this whole 00:04:37.269 --> 00:04:40.949 file. The name. Imitator. This specific epithet, 00:04:40.949 --> 00:04:44.490 yes. It is called the mimic tree frog. Now, I 00:04:44.490 --> 00:04:46.769 am not a biologist, obviously, but words mean 00:04:46.769 --> 00:04:49.329 things. Usually, yes. If you call something a 00:04:49.329 --> 00:04:51.550 mimic, you are implying it looks like something 00:04:51.550 --> 00:04:54.000 else. I mean, a stick insect looks like a stick. 00:04:54.120 --> 00:04:56.819 A mimic octopus can contort itself to look like 00:04:56.819 --> 00:04:59.160 a sea snake. Correct. That is the biological 00:04:59.160 --> 00:05:01.899 definition of mimicry. So I scoured these records. 00:05:02.040 --> 00:05:04.180 I looked for the field notes. I really wanted 00:05:04.180 --> 00:05:05.800 to know what this thing is mimicking. And what 00:05:05.800 --> 00:05:07.759 did you find? Nothing. Does it look like a leaf? 00:05:07.839 --> 00:05:09.420 Does it look like bird poop? Does it look like 00:05:09.420 --> 00:05:12.060 a poisonous dart frog? The source text is just 00:05:12.060 --> 00:05:15.060 completely empty on this. It is the supreme irony 00:05:15.060 --> 00:05:18.939 of this entire deep dive. We have the label, 00:05:19.079 --> 00:05:22.430 the mimic. But the file does not tell us what 00:05:22.430 --> 00:05:25.870 the model is. How is that even possible? Barbara 00:05:25.870 --> 00:05:28.370 and Dunn must have seen it mimicking something 00:05:28.370 --> 00:05:30.899 in the wild to name it that, right? Not necessarily. 00:05:30.980 --> 00:05:33.779 And this is where the limitations of 1920s science 00:05:33.779 --> 00:05:36.180 really come back to bite us. Remember those jars 00:05:36.180 --> 00:05:38.519 of alcohol I mentioned a minute ago? Yeah. When 00:05:38.519 --> 00:05:40.680 you preserve a frog in alcohol, something really 00:05:40.680 --> 00:05:44.839 tragic happens. The colors fade. Yes. A vibrant 00:05:44.839 --> 00:05:47.899 green, yellow, or red frog turns into a muddy, 00:05:48.040 --> 00:05:51.220 grayish -brown lump within weeks, let alone years. 00:05:51.500 --> 00:05:53.980 Oh, wow. I didn't even think of that. So Barbara 00:05:53.980 --> 00:05:55.660 and Dunn might have seen something spectacular 00:05:55.660 --> 00:05:57.980 in the field. Maybe it was mimicking a toxic 00:05:57.980 --> 00:06:00.579 beetle or a specific lechon pattern on a tree 00:06:00.579 --> 00:06:03.600 trunk, and they enthusiastically named it Imitator. 00:06:03.720 --> 00:06:06.079 But the evidence vanished. Exactly. If they did 00:06:06.079 --> 00:06:08.120 not write down a highly detailed color description 00:06:08.120 --> 00:06:10.839 in 1921, or if those field notes were lost in 00:06:10.839 --> 00:06:13.259 transit or in archive, all we have left is the 00:06:13.259 --> 00:06:15.800 grayish -brown lump in the jar. We have the name, 00:06:15.800 --> 00:06:17.839 but the visual evidence has literally dissolved. 00:06:18.459 --> 00:06:20.579 That is heartbreaking. It is like having the 00:06:20.579 --> 00:06:22.980 punchline, but completely losing the joke. It 00:06:22.980 --> 00:06:25.040 is incredibly frustrating for modern researchers, 00:06:25.240 --> 00:06:27.819 but we can speculate a bit based on the family. 00:06:28.040 --> 00:06:31.600 In Hyalidae, mimicry usually falls into two buckets. 00:06:31.860 --> 00:06:34.220 Okay, what are they? You have crypsis, which 00:06:34.220 --> 00:06:37.480 is essentially camouflage, looking like bark 00:06:37.480 --> 00:06:40.300 or leaves to hide from predators. Blending in. 00:06:40.439 --> 00:06:45.439 Right. Or you have Batesian mimicry. That is 00:06:45.439 --> 00:06:48.379 where a harmless frog evolves to look exactly 00:06:48.379 --> 00:06:51.720 like a highly toxic species to scare things off. 00:06:51.899 --> 00:06:54.379 Given the central Amazon setting, looking like 00:06:54.379 --> 00:06:56.560 a toxic neighbor seems like a pretty smart play. 00:06:56.759 --> 00:06:58.839 It is a very smart play. There are plenty of 00:06:58.839 --> 00:07:01.540 poison dart frogs in that region. If Hyla Imitator 00:07:01.540 --> 00:07:04.579 has bright warning colors or had them, I should 00:07:04.579 --> 00:07:06.120 say it might be pretending to be one of those. 00:07:06.259 --> 00:07:08.339 But without a fresh specimen, we are just guessing 00:07:08.339 --> 00:07:10.860 at shadows. We are entirely guessing. Which brings 00:07:10.860 --> 00:07:13.509 us to the modern reality of this frog. I look 00:07:13.509 --> 00:07:16.009 at the conservation status thinking, OK, surely 00:07:16.009 --> 00:07:17.990 someone has checked on it recently. We have satellites 00:07:17.990 --> 00:07:20.949 now. Yeah. But the IUCN red list status is just 00:07:20.949 --> 00:07:24.230 listed as data deficient. The most frustrating 00:07:24.230 --> 00:07:27.250 two words in conservation biology. It sounds 00:07:27.250 --> 00:07:30.709 like a comp out. Data deficient. It feels like 00:07:30.709 --> 00:07:32.629 the teacher asking for your homework and you 00:07:32.629 --> 00:07:35.990 just saying, I plead the fifth. It does sound 00:07:35.990 --> 00:07:38.389 evasive. Does it mean it's extinct? No. Does 00:07:38.389 --> 00:07:40.910 it mean it's fine? We cannot say that either. 00:07:41.209 --> 00:07:43.360 So what does it actually mean? technically speaking. 00:07:43.500 --> 00:07:47.889 To place a species on the red list as endangered 00:07:47.889 --> 00:07:52.089 or vulnerable you need math the iucn has very 00:07:52.089 --> 00:07:54.870 strict rigorous criteria you can't just guess 00:07:54.870 --> 00:07:57.730 exactly you need to calculate the area of occupancy 00:07:57.730 --> 00:08:00.310 literally how many square kilometers they actually 00:08:00.310 --> 00:08:03.370 live in or you need population trend data showing 00:08:03.370 --> 00:08:05.670 a clear decline over three generations and we 00:08:05.670 --> 00:08:07.870 have zero of that we have a single data point 00:08:07.870 --> 00:08:10.009 from a century ago somewhere in the central amazon 00:08:10.009 --> 00:08:12.649 statistically that is zero you cannot draw a 00:08:12.649 --> 00:08:15.310 trend line with one dot right so data deficient 00:08:15.310 --> 00:08:17.970 isn't a lack of effort from scientists, it is 00:08:17.970 --> 00:08:20.750 a statement of statistical impossibility. We 00:08:20.750 --> 00:08:22.910 cannot assess the risk of extinction because 00:08:22.910 --> 00:08:24.769 we cannot even prove the frog is still there 00:08:24.769 --> 00:08:28.269 to be at risk. Wow. The source actually cites 00:08:28.269 --> 00:08:31.730 an assessment from 2004 by Miguel Trafote Rodriguez 00:08:31.730 --> 00:08:35.870 and Claudia Azevedo Ramos. So 20 years ago... 00:08:36.090 --> 00:08:38.169 Actual experts looked at this file and basically 00:08:38.169 --> 00:08:40.509 just shrugged. They didn't just shrug. They formally 00:08:40.509 --> 00:08:42.490 acknowledged the void. And you really have to 00:08:42.490 --> 00:08:44.970 think about the geography here. The central Amazon, 00:08:45.149 --> 00:08:48.110 that is not a backyard in the suburbs. No. We 00:08:48.110 --> 00:08:50.759 are talking about... Millions of square kilometers 00:08:50.759 --> 00:08:53.740 of dense, multilayered rainforest. It is a needle 00:08:53.740 --> 00:08:55.779 in a haystack, but the haystack is the size of 00:08:55.779 --> 00:08:57.519 the continental United States and the needle 00:08:57.519 --> 00:08:59.980 is actively hiding from you. Precisely. And if 00:08:59.980 --> 00:09:01.919 the frog is arboreal, meaning it lives high up 00:09:01.919 --> 00:09:04.000 in the canopy, you could walk right under it 00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:06.120 every day for 50 years and never know it was 00:09:06.120 --> 00:09:09.440 there. That concept that we can lose a species 00:09:09.440 --> 00:09:11.679 that we technically know about it really hit 00:09:11.679 --> 00:09:13.460 me when I looked at the Wikipedia entry itself. 00:09:13.720 --> 00:09:16.519 The source explicitly calls it a stub. The digital 00:09:16.519 --> 00:09:19.230 echo of the biological problem. Yeah. It says, 00:09:19.330 --> 00:09:28.730 quote, It is poignant, isn't it? It is an open 00:09:28.730 --> 00:09:31.009 invitation to the collective knowledge of humanity 00:09:31.009 --> 00:09:34.590 asking, does anyone know anything about this 00:09:34.590 --> 00:09:36.629 creature? And for decades, the answer has just 00:09:36.629 --> 00:09:39.750 been crickets. Or, I guess, silence. Silence, 00:09:39.929 --> 00:09:42.350 yes. But here is the really weird part. I was 00:09:42.350 --> 00:09:44.250 looking at the metadata, you know, the footer 00:09:44.250 --> 00:09:46.090 stuff that most people completely ignore at the 00:09:46.090 --> 00:09:48.980 bottom of the page. This page was last edited 00:09:48.980 --> 00:09:53.299 on October 3, 2025. Just a few months ago. Exactly. 00:09:53.360 --> 00:09:57.460 So someone or something is maintaining this file. 00:09:57.679 --> 00:09:59.620 But they didn't add any biology. They didn't 00:09:59.620 --> 00:10:02.019 add a photo. They didn't add a diet or a mating 00:10:02.019 --> 00:10:04.990 call. It was almost certainly a bot. Or maybe 00:10:04.990 --> 00:10:07.370 a taxonomy enthusiast updating a broken link 00:10:07.370 --> 00:10:09.470 or a category tag. Just shuffling the paperwork. 00:10:09.629 --> 00:10:11.590 Exactly. And this highlights a very modern problem 00:10:11.590 --> 00:10:13.590 in science. We have excellent metadata today. 00:10:13.669 --> 00:10:16.529 We have the taxon identifiers. I saw the list 00:10:16.529 --> 00:10:21.870 in the source. Wikidata Q3143873. IDAS ID 662518. 00:10:22.110 --> 00:10:24.690 Alphabet soup. But important alphabet soup. We 00:10:24.690 --> 00:10:26.730 have a flawless digital passport for this frog. 00:10:27.029 --> 00:10:29.549 But the passport has no photo and no stamps. 00:10:30.090 --> 00:10:32.590 That is the perfect analogy. We have the entire 00:10:32.590 --> 00:10:34.870 bureaucratic infrastructure ready for the frog, 00:10:35.029 --> 00:10:38.230 but we lack the frog itself. It's crazy. It exists 00:10:38.230 --> 00:10:40.529 perfectly in the database, but it might not exist 00:10:40.529 --> 00:10:43.490 in the forest anymore. Or conversely, it is thriving 00:10:43.490 --> 00:10:45.669 in the forest, and our database is just a hollow 00:10:45.669 --> 00:10:48.049 shell. The categories on that page are wild, 00:10:48.149 --> 00:10:51.389 too. It is categorized under endemic frogs of 00:10:51.389 --> 00:10:55.690 Brazil and amphibians described in 1921. It is 00:10:55.690 --> 00:10:58.769 defined entirely by its past. Yes. It's like 00:10:58.769 --> 00:11:01.830 a ghost of the 1920s haunting the 2020s server 00:11:01.830 --> 00:11:04.429 rooms. And that is exactly why stubs like this 00:11:04.429 --> 00:11:06.830 matter so much. We tend to think of the Internet 00:11:06.830 --> 00:11:09.830 and science by extension as this complete finished 00:11:09.830 --> 00:11:12.789 repository of all human knowledge. If it is not 00:11:12.789 --> 00:11:15.210 on Google, it does not exist. Right. We all think 00:11:15.210 --> 00:11:17.190 that. What Hyla Imitator proves that is false. 00:11:17.330 --> 00:11:19.950 The map still has holes in it. Big Amazon sized 00:11:19.950 --> 00:11:23.129 holes. Massive ones. Data deficient species actually 00:11:23.129 --> 00:11:25.389 make up a huge chunk of global biodiversity. 00:11:26.330 --> 00:11:28.330 Oh, absolutely. We focus on the tiger and the 00:11:28.330 --> 00:11:31.210 panda because they are big, they are charismatic, 00:11:31.470 --> 00:11:34.190 and we have tons of data on them. But the library 00:11:34.190 --> 00:11:38.029 of life is full of books with blank pages. This 00:11:38.029 --> 00:11:40.629 frog is just one of thousands of Jane Does out 00:11:40.629 --> 00:11:43.289 there waiting for a detective. So let's try to 00:11:43.289 --> 00:11:44.970 land this play and summarize what we've actually 00:11:44.970 --> 00:11:47.549 got here for you guys listening. Good idea. We 00:11:47.549 --> 00:11:50.350 have a frog from the central Amazon. It was found 00:11:50.350 --> 00:11:52.470 by the Indiana Jones generation of biologists 00:11:52.470 --> 00:11:56.740 over a century ago. It was named the Mimic, but 00:11:56.740 --> 00:11:58.860 we have absolutely no idea what it mimics because 00:11:58.860 --> 00:12:01.639 the color likely faded in a jar of alcohol 80 00:12:01.639 --> 00:12:04.200 or 90 years ago. Correct. And it is currently 00:12:04.200 --> 00:12:06.840 stuck in taxonomic purgatory with scare quotes 00:12:06.840 --> 00:12:09.539 around its genus name because we do not have 00:12:09.539 --> 00:12:12.059 the fresh DNA required to place it properly on 00:12:12.059 --> 00:12:14.679 the family tree. And despite satellites and AI 00:12:14.679 --> 00:12:17.139 and the entire globe being connected by the Internet, 00:12:17.340 --> 00:12:19.200 nobody has been able to fill in the blanks for 00:12:19.200 --> 00:12:21.899 a century. That is the situation in a nutshell. 00:12:22.139 --> 00:12:24.759 It is a humble and frankly necessary reminder 00:12:24.759 --> 00:12:27.480 of how little we actually know about our own 00:12:27.480 --> 00:12:29.460 planet. You know, I was thinking about the why 00:12:29.460 --> 00:12:32.059 of all this as I was prepping. Why haven't we 00:12:32.059 --> 00:12:34.779 found it? Is the Amazon just too big? That is 00:12:34.779 --> 00:12:37.279 the Occam's razor answer. The simplest explanation. 00:12:37.580 --> 00:12:40.480 Exactly. The Amazon is vast. The global funding 00:12:40.480 --> 00:12:42.779 for herpetological field research is incredibly 00:12:42.779 --> 00:12:45.740 low. And the specific area is extremely hard 00:12:45.740 --> 00:12:48.580 to access. It is by far the most likely explanation. 00:12:48.980 --> 00:12:50.840 But can we go back to the name one last time? 00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:54.840 Imitator. Sure. If you are a creature that has 00:12:54.840 --> 00:12:58.460 evolved specifically to look like something else, 00:12:58.580 --> 00:13:03.279 to blend in, to deceive, to go completely unnoticed. 00:13:03.840 --> 00:13:05.919 isn't it possible that we actually have found 00:13:05.919 --> 00:13:08.519 it? What do you mean by that? I mean, maybe researchers 00:13:08.519 --> 00:13:10.379 have picked it up a dozen times in the last 20 00:13:10.379 --> 00:13:13.519 years, but they looked at it and said, oh, that 00:13:13.519 --> 00:13:15.840 is just a common tree frog, or that is just a 00:13:15.840 --> 00:13:18.320 juvenile of this other widespread species, and 00:13:18.320 --> 00:13:21.100 they just threw it back. That, wow, that is a 00:13:21.100 --> 00:13:23.480 distinct possibility. Right, if it is a genuinely 00:13:23.480 --> 00:13:26.259 good mimic, its entire survival strategy is literally 00:13:26.259 --> 00:13:28.919 do not let them know I am me. Cryptic species. 00:13:29.720 --> 00:13:31.899 Yes, it happens more often than you'd think. 00:13:32.809 --> 00:13:35.850 We distinguish species in the field very often 00:13:35.850 --> 00:13:38.250 by morphology, their shape, and their color. 00:13:38.389 --> 00:13:40.830 Which is exactly what a mimic is trying to hack. 00:13:40.990 --> 00:13:43.350 Exactly. If the shape and color are designed 00:13:43.350 --> 00:13:46.850 by evolution to deceive, then yes, human eyes 00:13:46.850 --> 00:13:48.980 could easily be fooled. So they wouldn't even 00:13:48.980 --> 00:13:50.759 know they had the Holy Grail in their hands. 00:13:50.899 --> 00:13:53.059 They wouldn't. It might actually require genetic 00:13:53.059 --> 00:13:56.580 sequencing of hundreds of supposedly common frogs 00:13:56.580 --> 00:13:59.580 to suddenly realize that Hyla Imitator has been 00:13:59.580 --> 00:14:02.259 hiding in the data set the whole time. So it 00:14:02.259 --> 00:14:04.919 is not a ghost at all. It's an undercover agent. 00:14:05.100 --> 00:14:07.769 It is hiding in plain sight. I love that. That 00:14:07.769 --> 00:14:10.970 makes the data deficient label feel a lot less 00:14:10.970 --> 00:14:13.690 like a scientific failure and a lot more like 00:14:13.690 --> 00:14:15.669 a massive success story for the frog itself. 00:14:15.950 --> 00:14:17.470 Oh, absolutely. From the frog's perspective, 00:14:17.809 --> 00:14:20.129 staying completely off the radar for a century 00:14:20.129 --> 00:14:22.809 is the ultimate evolutionary win. Well, on that 00:14:22.809 --> 00:14:24.690 note, I think I'm going to go look at some leaves 00:14:24.690 --> 00:14:26.789 in my backyard and wonder if they're actually 00:14:26.789 --> 00:14:29.029 frogs in disguise. Always a healthy exercise 00:14:29.029 --> 00:14:31.710 to question your reality a bit. This has been 00:14:31.710 --> 00:14:34.190 The Deep Dive. We will catch you next time, assuming 00:14:34.190 --> 00:14:35.509 we can find you. Keep looking.