WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.919 I think there is a tendency when we look at biodiversity 00:00:02.919 --> 00:00:05.780 in South and Southeast Asia to get a little dazzled 00:00:05.780 --> 00:00:08.000 by the celebrities. The megafauna. Right, the 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:10.580 megafauna. You know, we focus on the tigers and 00:00:10.580 --> 00:00:13.099 the tall grass or the elephants or the rhinos. 00:00:13.119 --> 00:00:15.660 It's this megafauna bias that we all have. If 00:00:15.660 --> 00:00:18.620 a creature is big enough to crush a car, we pay 00:00:18.620 --> 00:00:21.480 attention to it. Which, I mean, it makes sense 00:00:21.480 --> 00:00:24.079 evolutionarily, right? We're completely wired 00:00:24.079 --> 00:00:26.879 to notice the things that can eat us or the things 00:00:26.879 --> 00:00:30.339 that are big enough to be... it is just much 00:00:30.339 --> 00:00:32.219 harder to get people to care about what is happening 00:00:32.219 --> 00:00:34.770 in the mud at their ankles. But that is exactly 00:00:34.770 --> 00:00:36.770 where we are going today for this deep dive. 00:00:36.990 --> 00:00:40.149 We are looking down. Way down. Yeah. So I've 00:00:40.149 --> 00:00:42.710 got this massive stack of source materials here. 00:00:42.789 --> 00:00:45.670 Scientific articles, field entries, taxonomic 00:00:45.670 --> 00:00:48.429 databases. And they all cover a very specific 00:00:48.429 --> 00:00:51.350 slice of the amphibian world. We're mostly looking 00:00:51.350 --> 00:00:54.130 at frogs from the genus Hylaurana and its close 00:00:54.130 --> 00:00:57.009 relatives. Spanning a huge geographic area, too. 00:00:57.189 --> 00:00:59.350 Exactly. Stretching all the way from Nepal down 00:00:59.350 --> 00:01:01.810 through Indonesia. And honestly, going through 00:01:01.810 --> 00:01:03.799 these sources, the word... complex doesn't even 00:01:03.799 --> 00:01:06.780 begin to cover it. It really doesn't. Like this 00:01:06.780 --> 00:01:09.819 isn't some neat and tidy nature documentary where 00:01:09.819 --> 00:01:12.700 everything has a clear place. It is a chaotic 00:01:12.700 --> 00:01:16.739 mess of identity crises, missing data and survival 00:01:16.739 --> 00:01:19.349 strategies that are. Frankly, kind of ruthless. 00:01:19.870 --> 00:01:21.969 So for everyone listening, if you thought frogs 00:01:21.969 --> 00:01:24.370 were just sitting on lily pads waiting for flies, 00:01:24.650 --> 00:01:27.569 you are in for a ride. It is a mess. Yeah. But 00:01:27.569 --> 00:01:30.090 it is a very telling mess. Yeah. The frogs in 00:01:30.090 --> 00:01:32.769 this region, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, down 00:01:32.769 --> 00:01:35.730 to Sulawesi, they are effectively a barometer. 00:01:35.849 --> 00:01:38.290 They show us exactly how much we actually understand 00:01:38.290 --> 00:01:40.709 about the natural world right now. And the answer, 00:01:40.790 --> 00:01:43.189 based on these papers, is often not nearly as 00:01:43.189 --> 00:01:45.469 much as we think we do. Right. Not even close. 00:01:45.650 --> 00:01:47.670 Let's start with the identity crisis aspect of 00:01:47.670 --> 00:01:49.790 all this, because that was the first thing that 00:01:49.790 --> 00:01:51.430 really jumped out at me in the reading. You look 00:01:51.430 --> 00:01:53.930 at a frog, like the cork -rit frog. Humerana 00:01:53.930 --> 00:01:56.329 lateralis. Yes, the yellow frog. If you were 00:01:56.329 --> 00:01:58.870 reading a textbook from 20 years ago versus a 00:01:58.870 --> 00:02:01.650 research paper from 2015, you would genuinely 00:02:01.650 --> 00:02:03.670 think you were reading about completely different 00:02:03.670 --> 00:02:06.430 animals. You absolutely would. And that is because 00:02:06.430 --> 00:02:09.949 the taxonomy, the actual scientific naming system 00:02:09.949 --> 00:02:12.250 we use to categorize these animals, has been 00:02:12.250 --> 00:02:15.370 incredibly volatile. Volatile is putting it mildly. 00:02:15.370 --> 00:02:18.030 I mean, going through the history here, this 00:02:18.030 --> 00:02:20.430 one frog has had at least four different last 00:02:20.430 --> 00:02:23.870 names in recent history. It started as a Rana, 00:02:24.009 --> 00:02:27.150 which I gather from the sources is kind of the 00:02:27.150 --> 00:02:29.610 John Doe of frog naming. That is a great way 00:02:29.610 --> 00:02:33.229 to put it, actually. Rana was essentially a wastebasket 00:02:33.229 --> 00:02:36.409 genus for a very long time. A wastebasket genus. 00:02:36.409 --> 00:02:39.770 Yeah. So if a herpetologist found a frog out 00:02:39.770 --> 00:02:41.849 in the field and it looked like a standard frog. 00:02:42.240 --> 00:02:44.500 You know, it had smooth skin, webbed feet, nothing 00:02:44.500 --> 00:02:46.860 too morphologically weird. They just tossed it 00:02:46.860 --> 00:02:49.259 into the Rana bucket. Just filed it under generic 00:02:49.259 --> 00:02:51.680 frog. Exactly. It was a purely morphological 00:02:51.680 --> 00:02:54.159 classification based on outward shape. If it 00:02:54.159 --> 00:02:55.800 looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, put 00:02:55.800 --> 00:02:57.819 it in the duck folder. But then the sources show 00:02:57.819 --> 00:03:00.680 it gets moved to Palophylax, which are usually 00:03:00.680 --> 00:03:03.419 water frogs. Then it gets moved again to hyalurona. 00:03:03.580 --> 00:03:06.039 And now the most recent papers say it is humerana. 00:03:06.319 --> 00:03:09.020 So why the constant shuffling? Is the frog actually 00:03:09.020 --> 00:03:11.860 changing or are the scientists just being indecisive? 00:03:11.919 --> 00:03:14.460 The frog is staying exactly the same. It is the 00:03:14.460 --> 00:03:17.460 tool set that is changing. We moved from looking 00:03:17.460 --> 00:03:19.780 at morphology, what the frog physically looks 00:03:19.780 --> 00:03:23.500 like, to phylogenetics. Which is the DNA. Exactly. 00:03:23.539 --> 00:03:26.240 Looking at the genetic code. Genetic sequencing 00:03:26.240 --> 00:03:27.979 revealed that a lot of these frogs that look 00:03:27.979 --> 00:03:30.500 totally identical to the naked eye are actually 00:03:30.500 --> 00:03:32.939 on completely different evolutionary branches. 00:03:33.259 --> 00:03:35.740 That makes sense. So Humirana isn't just a fun 00:03:35.740 --> 00:03:37.819 new label someone came up with. It represents 00:03:37.819 --> 00:03:41.039 a distinct ancient lineage that we just physically 00:03:41.039 --> 00:03:43.719 couldn't see before we had DNA analysis. There 00:03:43.719 --> 00:03:45.520 was also a note in the data about a synonym. 00:03:45.550 --> 00:03:49.469 It sounds like for a while we actually thought 00:03:49.469 --> 00:03:51.569 this was a completely separate species. We did, 00:03:51.689 --> 00:03:54.009 yeah. Negriliniata basically means black -lined, 00:03:54.189 --> 00:03:56.449 which refers to a specific dark marking on the 00:03:56.449 --> 00:03:59.409 frog. But further genetic research showed that 00:03:59.409 --> 00:04:01.250 this wasn't a different species at all. It was 00:04:01.250 --> 00:04:03.870 just a variation within the Cumerana lateralis 00:04:03.870 --> 00:04:06.370 population. So we were effectively double -counting 00:04:06.370 --> 00:04:09.150 them. Precisely. We thought we had two distinct 00:04:09.150 --> 00:04:11.990 species to protect or monitor, but we just had 00:04:11.990 --> 00:04:13.909 one species with a bit of a wardrobe change. 00:04:14.479 --> 00:04:16.740 Which feels like it complicates the conservation 00:04:16.740 --> 00:04:19.079 side of things pretty heavily. I mean, if you 00:04:19.079 --> 00:04:21.519 think you have two baskets of eggs, but you actually 00:04:21.519 --> 00:04:24.420 only have one, your risk calculation for that 00:04:24.420 --> 00:04:27.540 species is totally off. It completely skews the 00:04:27.540 --> 00:04:30.339 data. And this witness protection program phenomenon, 00:04:30.379 --> 00:04:32.959 all these changing names and hidden identities, 00:04:33.100 --> 00:04:37.069 it isn't limited to the mainland frogs. You see 00:04:37.069 --> 00:04:39.250 it on the islands, too. Oh, right. The Sleeves 00:04:39.250 --> 00:04:42.170 frog. Yes, out in Indonesia. The one from Sulawesi. 00:04:42.490 --> 00:04:45.189 I noticed in the older taxonomic papers it was 00:04:45.189 --> 00:04:48.389 written as Hylaurana sulabensis, but the Hylaurana 00:04:48.389 --> 00:04:50.870 was always in quotation marks, like actual quotes 00:04:50.870 --> 00:04:53.189 around the genus. That is basically the taxonomic 00:04:53.189 --> 00:04:56.050 equivalent of a shrug. A shrug. Yeah. The quotation 00:04:56.050 --> 00:04:58.069 marks in those older papers literally meant, 00:04:58.170 --> 00:05:00.170 we are calling it this for now because we have 00:05:00.170 --> 00:05:01.649 to call it something, but we know it doesn't 00:05:01.649 --> 00:05:04.670 really fit here. That is wild. So they knew it 00:05:04.670 --> 00:05:07.250 was wrong, but left it there. Until someone could 00:05:07.250 --> 00:05:10.189 prove where it actually belonged. It took until 00:05:10.189 --> 00:05:12.889 2020 to finally get the genetic proof to move 00:05:12.889 --> 00:05:15.949 it into papyrana. So now it is papyrana silamensis. 00:05:16.110 --> 00:05:18.610 So it took us decades to figure out it wasn't 00:05:18.610 --> 00:05:21.389 a hylaurana at all. Correct. And moving it to 00:05:21.389 --> 00:05:24.009 papyrana connects it much more closely to Papuan 00:05:24.009 --> 00:05:27.610 lineages. Which completely changes the scientific 00:05:27.610 --> 00:05:30.750 story of how that specific frog managed to get 00:05:30.750 --> 00:05:33.610 to Sulawesi in the first place. It rewrites the 00:05:33.610 --> 00:05:36.230 biogeography of the region. Okay, so the names 00:05:36.230 --> 00:05:39.329 are clearly in a state of flux. But let's actually 00:05:39.329 --> 00:05:41.250 talk about the frogs themselves, because despite 00:05:41.250 --> 00:05:43.670 the scientists being completely confused, the 00:05:43.670 --> 00:05:46.290 frogs seem to be doing just fine. At least this 00:05:46.290 --> 00:05:48.829 first batch of species does. There is a very 00:05:48.829 --> 00:05:51.050 distinct theme of resilience running through 00:05:51.050 --> 00:05:53.170 these sources. Definitely. We call them the generalists. 00:05:53.209 --> 00:05:55.569 These are the species that do not need a pristine, 00:05:55.629 --> 00:05:58.230 untouched Eden to survive. They can deal with 00:05:58.230 --> 00:06:01.160 us. The cocarit frog, the Humerana lateralis 00:06:01.160 --> 00:06:02.860 with the four names we just talked about, seems 00:06:02.860 --> 00:06:05.160 to be the absolute king of this. The habitat 00:06:05.160 --> 00:06:08.420 list in the data is extensive. It lists subtropical 00:06:08.420 --> 00:06:10.660 forests and marshes, which makes sense. Sure, 00:06:10.720 --> 00:06:13.279 standard frog habitat. But then it explicitly 00:06:13.279 --> 00:06:16.819 lists seasonally flooded agricultural land. Which 00:06:16.819 --> 00:06:20.209 means rice paddies. Right, and plantations. This 00:06:20.209 --> 00:06:21.990 isn't a fragile creature that flees into the 00:06:21.990 --> 00:06:23.750 mountains when humans show up with tractors. 00:06:23.870 --> 00:06:26.250 It seems to treat a human farm like a buffet. 00:06:26.470 --> 00:06:29.170 And that adaptability is a critical survival 00:06:29.170 --> 00:06:32.189 trait right now. When humans modify a landscape, 00:06:32.370 --> 00:06:35.170 we almost always simplify it. We cut down a highly 00:06:35.170 --> 00:06:37.750 diverse forest and plant neat rows of rubber 00:06:37.750 --> 00:06:40.870 trees or rice. We dig uniform irrigation ditches. 00:06:40.910 --> 00:06:43.209 Right. We pave over the complexity. Exactly. 00:06:43.370 --> 00:06:45.970 And for a specialist species, that simplification 00:06:45.970 --> 00:06:49.069 is a disaster. They lose the specific bugs they 00:06:49.069 --> 00:06:51.750 eat or the specific plants they hide in. But 00:06:51.750 --> 00:06:54.250 for a generalist like the cocorit frog, an irrigation 00:06:54.250 --> 00:06:57.250 ditch is just a nice, stable body of water that 00:06:57.250 --> 00:06:59.389 probably has fewer natural predators than a wild 00:06:59.389 --> 00:07:01.529 river. So they just move right in. But there 00:07:01.529 --> 00:07:03.759 is a pretty major tradeoff to moving. and with 00:07:03.759 --> 00:07:06.319 humans, according to the sources. The data from 00:07:06.319 --> 00:07:09.240 Cambodia, specifically the Snul district in Crady 00:07:09.240 --> 00:07:12.660 province, was pretty blunt about this. It states 00:07:12.660 --> 00:07:15.240 clearly that the frog is, quote, collected for 00:07:15.240 --> 00:07:18.019 consumption. Yes, it is a food source. So on 00:07:18.019 --> 00:07:20.860 one hand, it adapts perfectly to the farm. On 00:07:20.860 --> 00:07:22.759 the other hand, the farmer catches it and eats 00:07:22.759 --> 00:07:25.209 it for dinner. It is a very complex dynamic. 00:07:25.509 --> 00:07:28.769 In many parts of Southeast Asia, amphibians aren't 00:07:28.769 --> 00:07:31.410 just an accidental catch. They are a significant, 00:07:31.569 --> 00:07:34.810 reliable source of daily protein. It is an active 00:07:34.810 --> 00:07:37.610 harvest. But the population doesn't crash. No, 00:07:37.629 --> 00:07:40.269 because Humerano lateralis reproduces very quickly 00:07:40.269 --> 00:07:43.209 and has adapted to thrive in the exact fields 00:07:43.209 --> 00:07:45.329 where the farmers are working. The population 00:07:45.329 --> 00:07:48.189 manages to remain stable. It is officially listed 00:07:48.189 --> 00:07:52.550 as least concerned by the IUCN. It can take the 00:07:52.550 --> 00:07:54.730 hit. It's a slightly grim kind of stability, 00:07:54.910 --> 00:07:57.230 but I get it. They breed fast enough to outpace 00:07:57.230 --> 00:08:00.050 the frying pan. Basically, yes. Now, moving a 00:08:00.050 --> 00:08:02.310 bit further north to China and Taiwan, the sources 00:08:02.310 --> 00:08:07.750 detail another incredibly tough customer. Ah, 00:08:08.230 --> 00:08:10.449 the broad -folded frog. That is another very 00:08:10.449 --> 00:08:13.110 widespread, highly adaptable species. Two things 00:08:13.110 --> 00:08:14.790 really struck me about the data on this one. 00:08:14.889 --> 00:08:16.790 First, the size difference between the sexes. 00:08:16.790 --> 00:08:19.129 The females are massive compared to the males. 00:08:19.350 --> 00:08:21.850 That is a classic example of sexual dimorphism. 00:08:21.949 --> 00:08:25.569 A female broad -folded frog can reach up to 47 00:08:25.569 --> 00:08:28.709 millimeters, while the male tops out around 38. 00:08:29.290 --> 00:08:31.730 That is a huge percentage difference in body 00:08:31.730 --> 00:08:34.370 mass. It is a significant difference, yes. And 00:08:34.370 --> 00:08:36.690 usually in amphibians, that is all about egg 00:08:36.690 --> 00:08:39.919 capacity. A bigger female has the physical space 00:08:39.919 --> 00:08:42.259 to carry a lot more offspring, which, again, 00:08:42.320 --> 00:08:44.919 is a fantastic strategy if you are a generalist 00:08:44.919 --> 00:08:46.700 trying to flood an environment with your genes. 00:08:46.879 --> 00:08:49.440 But the geography makes this one weird. The data 00:08:49.440 --> 00:08:51.779 notes that the population living in Taiwan is 00:08:51.779 --> 00:08:54.240 generally even bigger. The females there are 00:08:54.240 --> 00:08:57.039 hitting 55 millimeters. And the researchers suggest 00:08:57.039 --> 00:08:58.940 the Taiwan group might actually be a completely 00:08:58.940 --> 00:09:01.299 different species from the mainland China group. 00:09:01.639 --> 00:09:03.639 That is what we call the island rule in action, 00:09:03.779 --> 00:09:05.639 or at least a variation of it. The island rule? 00:09:05.899 --> 00:09:07.899 Yeah, so populations that become isolated on 00:09:07.899 --> 00:09:10.320 islands often diverge in size from their mainland 00:09:10.320 --> 00:09:13.320 relatives. They either become giants or dwarfs. 00:09:13.759 --> 00:09:15.779 It happens because they are dealing with entirely 00:09:15.779 --> 00:09:17.759 different resource availability and different 00:09:17.759 --> 00:09:20.299 predator pressures. Okay, so a frog stuck on 00:09:20.299 --> 00:09:23.019 Taman adapts differently than a frog in mainland 00:09:23.019 --> 00:09:26.299 China. Right. And if the future genetic sequencing 00:09:26.299 --> 00:09:29.639 confirms that divergence, we might see hyaluronal 00:09:29.639 --> 00:09:32.840 Latuche officially split into two separate species. 00:09:33.179 --> 00:09:35.600 Which would, again, completely change the conservation 00:09:35.600 --> 00:09:38.100 math we talked about earlier. Exactly. Suddenly, 00:09:38.100 --> 00:09:41.639 you do not have one giant, globally safe population. 00:09:41.740 --> 00:09:44.860 You have two smaller, localized ones that need 00:09:44.860 --> 00:09:47.299 their own risk assessments. But there's another 00:09:47.299 --> 00:09:49.759 massive reason you should care about Latuche's 00:09:49.759 --> 00:09:52.200 frog, even if you never plan on visiting Taiwan 00:09:52.200 --> 00:09:54.970 or China. The medical aspect of the research. 00:09:55.090 --> 00:09:58.629 Yes, the antimicrobial peptides. The idea that 00:09:58.629 --> 00:10:01.149 this tiny frog is basically a swimming pharmacy. 00:10:01.490 --> 00:10:04.110 It is incredible. Think about where these specific 00:10:04.110 --> 00:10:07.409 frogs live. They are in stagnant water, agricultural 00:10:07.409 --> 00:10:11.169 runoff, thick mud, teeming with every kind of 00:10:11.169 --> 00:10:13.830 bacteria and fungi imaginable. Not exactly a 00:10:13.830 --> 00:10:16.350 sterile environment. Far from it. And remember, 00:10:16.509 --> 00:10:18.940 their skin is highly permeable. Frogs literally 00:10:18.940 --> 00:10:21.480 breathe and drink through their skin. By all 00:10:21.480 --> 00:10:23.500 rights, given the water they sit in, they should 00:10:23.500 --> 00:10:25.679 be constantly riddled with massive infections. 00:10:25.940 --> 00:10:28.419 But they aren't. They're totally fine. No, they 00:10:28.419 --> 00:10:31.740 thrive. Because they have evolved this incredibly 00:10:31.740 --> 00:10:34.940 complex chemical defense system in their skin 00:10:34.940 --> 00:10:37.940 secretions, they produce peptides that effectively 00:10:37.940 --> 00:10:40.700 blow up bacterial cells on contact. They just 00:10:40.700 --> 00:10:42.860 destroy the bacteria before it can infect them. 00:10:43.019 --> 00:10:45.879 Right. And scientists are intensely studying 00:10:45.879 --> 00:10:48.309 these peptides right now because... They work 00:10:48.309 --> 00:10:50.529 through completely different physical mechanisms 00:10:50.529 --> 00:10:54.070 than our standard human antibiotics. Which is 00:10:54.070 --> 00:10:56.309 huge, right? Because antibiotic resistance is 00:10:56.309 --> 00:10:59.129 one of the biggest looming threats to human medicine 00:10:59.129 --> 00:11:02.389 right now. It is a massive crisis. So in a world 00:11:02.389 --> 00:11:05.789 where our drugs are failing, a common muddy frog 00:11:05.789 --> 00:11:08.830 living in a flooded rice paddy might actually 00:11:08.830 --> 00:11:11.269 hold the exact chemical blueprint we need to 00:11:11.269 --> 00:11:13.269 design the next generation of life -saving medicines. 00:11:13.590 --> 00:11:15.950 It is a very utilitarian argument for conservation, 00:11:16.149 --> 00:11:17.940 but it is an undeniable argument. strong one. 00:11:18.019 --> 00:11:19.980 We keep the muddy frogs around because they might 00:11:19.980 --> 00:11:22.000 save you from a lethal staph infection ten years 00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:24.100 down the line. Whatever works to keep the habitat 00:11:24.100 --> 00:11:26.279 standing, honestly. Yeah. Nature is a library, 00:11:26.460 --> 00:11:29.120 and we have barely read the first page. Okay, 00:11:29.179 --> 00:11:31.759 so those are the survivors. The generalists. 00:11:31.960 --> 00:11:34.519 The tough guys. But then the source material 00:11:34.519 --> 00:11:37.620 shifts, and we get to the weirdos. The highly 00:11:37.620 --> 00:11:40.399 specialized frogs. The ones that read the environment 00:11:40.399 --> 00:11:43.240 and went all in on one specific trait. Exactly. 00:11:43.399 --> 00:11:45.740 And this is where the evolutionary design gets 00:11:45.740 --> 00:11:49.779 crazy specific. Let's look at Hilarana garoensis 00:11:49.779 --> 00:11:53.100 from India. Bollinger's Garo hill frog. Or, as 00:11:53.100 --> 00:11:55.480 it's sometimes called, the swift cascade frog, 00:11:55.600 --> 00:11:58.120 which, the name alone tells you a lot about its 00:11:58.120 --> 00:12:00.379 lifestyle, but visually, reading the description 00:12:00.379 --> 00:12:02.480 of this thing, it sounds like it was stretched 00:12:02.480 --> 00:12:04.899 on a medieval rack. It does have a fascinating 00:12:04.899 --> 00:12:08.799 morphology. It is a tiny frog, maybe 32 millimeters 00:12:08.799 --> 00:12:11.440 long. Barely an inch. Right. But it has this 00:12:11.440 --> 00:12:14.759 incredibly long head, a sharply pointed snout, 00:12:14.759 --> 00:12:17.720 and these extremely long front legs. And the 00:12:17.720 --> 00:12:19.460 feet, this is the part that got me. The text 00:12:19.460 --> 00:12:21.840 specifically points out that it has webbed hind 00:12:21.840 --> 00:12:23.740 feet, which is normal, but no webbing at all 00:12:23.740 --> 00:12:25.919 on the front feet. None. Which seems completely 00:12:25.919 --> 00:12:27.840 counterintuitive for an animal that lives in 00:12:27.840 --> 00:12:30.360 the water. But instead of webbing, it has discs. 00:12:30.580 --> 00:12:32.700 Think about the specific environment it chose. 00:12:33.320 --> 00:12:36.500 Swift Cascade. It lives in fast -moving water, 00:12:36.620 --> 00:12:40.720 waterfalls, steep, rocky mountain streams. Webbing 00:12:40.720 --> 00:12:43.059 is fantastic if you want to push water to swim, 00:12:43.220 --> 00:12:45.720 but it is absolute terrible if you are trying 00:12:45.720 --> 00:12:47.879 to grip a wet rock. Because the current would 00:12:47.879 --> 00:12:49.879 just catch the webbing like a sail. Exactly. 00:12:50.039 --> 00:12:52.799 If you have big webbed hands in a rushing current, 00:12:52.940 --> 00:12:55.179 the water catches them and physically rips you 00:12:55.179 --> 00:12:57.639 off the rock. So it traded its swimming paddles 00:12:57.639 --> 00:12:59.759 for climbing gear. That is exactly what it did. 00:12:59.860 --> 00:13:02.879 The discs on its unwebbed front toes act like 00:13:02.879 --> 00:13:05.519 friction pads or little suction cups. It uses 00:13:05.519 --> 00:13:07.419 them to anchor its body against the torrent. 00:13:07.460 --> 00:13:10.059 And those unusually long arms allow... to reach 00:13:10.059 --> 00:13:12.559 out over the rushing water to find the next secure 00:13:12.559 --> 00:13:15.580 hold. Wow. It is a high performance, precision 00:13:15.580 --> 00:13:18.759 engineered machine built for one incredibly specific 00:13:18.759 --> 00:13:21.639 task, staying attached to a slippery rock in 00:13:21.639 --> 00:13:23.679 a waterfall. And this is where the narrative 00:13:23.679 --> 00:13:25.860 and the sources really shifts for me. Because 00:13:25.860 --> 00:13:28.580 when evolution builds a machine that is so perfectly 00:13:28.580 --> 00:13:32.360 tuned for one exact environment, the animal usually 00:13:32.360 --> 00:13:35.139 loses the ability to live anywhere else. The 00:13:35.139 --> 00:13:37.240 Pokrit frog we talked about earlier, it can live 00:13:37.240 --> 00:13:39.860 in a swamp, a farm, a ditch. The generalist. 00:13:39.899 --> 00:13:42.419 Right. But the swift cascade frog absolutely 00:13:42.419 --> 00:13:45.720 needs the cascade. And that is the lethal trap 00:13:45.720 --> 00:13:48.940 of specialization. If you dam the river upstream 00:13:48.940 --> 00:13:52.399 and the water flow stops, the frog dies. It cannot 00:13:52.399 --> 00:13:54.840 adapt to still water. Or if there is logging 00:13:54.840 --> 00:13:57.759 nearby. Yes. If logging causes mud and silt to 00:13:57.759 --> 00:14:00.240 wash into the stream and cover the rocks, the 00:14:00.240 --> 00:14:02.860 frog's discs can't grip the stone anymore. The 00:14:02.860 --> 00:14:06.100 current washes it away and it dies. They're absolute 00:14:06.100 --> 00:14:08.919 masterpieces of evolution, but they are incredibly 00:14:08.919 --> 00:14:11.580 heartbreakingly fragile. And that fragility leads 00:14:11.580 --> 00:14:13.399 us right into the part of the research stack 00:14:13.399 --> 00:14:15.929 that I found the most unsettling. The data deficient 00:14:15.929 --> 00:14:18.649 files. We have this whole category of frogs in 00:14:18.649 --> 00:14:20.370 the data where the official scientific status 00:14:20.370 --> 00:14:22.669 is basically we have absolutely no idea what 00:14:22.669 --> 00:14:25.149 is going on. It is easily the most frustrating 00:14:25.149 --> 00:14:27.549 label in the conservation world. When you see 00:14:27.549 --> 00:14:30.629 data deficient, it does not mean we are pretty 00:14:30.629 --> 00:14:33.570 sure they're OK. It usually means we found this 00:14:33.570 --> 00:14:36.110 animal exactly once. And despite our best efforts, 00:14:36.250 --> 00:14:38.809 we haven't been able to find it again. The Sumatra 00:14:38.809 --> 00:14:41.899 frog. Hylaurana persimilis seems to be the ultimate 00:14:41.899 --> 00:14:44.940 example of this in our deep dive today. The notes 00:14:44.940 --> 00:14:47.460 say it is known only from the holotype. Let's 00:14:47.460 --> 00:14:50.399 unpack that term for a second. A holotype is 00:14:50.399 --> 00:14:53.480 the single original physical specimen that was 00:14:53.480 --> 00:14:55.940 used to officially describe the new species for 00:14:55.940 --> 00:14:59.279 the first time. Okay. So, a researcher in Ace, 00:14:59.340 --> 00:15:03.659 Indonesia found one single frog by a lakeside. 00:15:03.740 --> 00:15:06.179 They collected it. preserved it, put it in a 00:15:06.179 --> 00:15:09.440 glass jar of alcohol on a shelf, wrote up a detailed 00:15:09.440 --> 00:15:11.799 morphological description, and give it a Latin 00:15:11.799 --> 00:15:14.659 name. And that is it. That is the entire sum 00:15:14.659 --> 00:15:17.120 of human knowledge regarding that species. One 00:15:17.120 --> 00:15:20.169 jar. One jar. We literally have only ever seen 00:15:20.169 --> 00:15:22.409 one example of it in recorded history. So we 00:15:22.409 --> 00:15:23.970 are talking about a species that is technically 00:15:23.970 --> 00:15:26.629 known to science. It is in the textbooks. But 00:15:26.629 --> 00:15:29.450 in reality, it is a ghost. We do not know if 00:15:29.450 --> 00:15:31.529 it is still out there. We do not know if it was 00:15:31.529 --> 00:15:33.850 just incredibly rare to begin with or if it is 00:15:33.850 --> 00:15:36.330 already extinct. We don't even know if the taxonomy 00:15:36.330 --> 00:15:40.360 is actually correct. With only one old preserved 00:15:40.360 --> 00:15:43.659 specimen, it is very hard to do the kind of high 00:15:43.659 --> 00:15:46.200 -quality modern genetic sequencing we do on living 00:15:46.200 --> 00:15:49.159 populations. It is a total cipher. And it isn't 00:15:49.159 --> 00:15:51.539 just the Sumatra frog. The sources mention the 00:15:51.539 --> 00:15:55.019 Irrawaddy frog in Myanmar, too, Hilarana margariana. 00:15:55.279 --> 00:15:58.000 Yes, another ghost. It was formally described 00:15:58.000 --> 00:16:02.659 way back in 1879. And today, almost 150 years 00:16:02.659 --> 00:16:06.419 later, its status is still listed as data deficient. 00:16:06.700 --> 00:16:09.559 That is a century and a half of total silence. 00:16:09.860 --> 00:16:11.919 Now, with Myanmar, you have to factor in the 00:16:11.919 --> 00:16:14.059 human element. Myanmar has been historically 00:16:14.059 --> 00:16:16.379 very difficult for foreign researchers to access 00:16:16.379 --> 00:16:19.059 due to long periods of severe political instability 00:16:19.059 --> 00:16:21.299 and conflict. Right. Science doesn't happen in 00:16:21.299 --> 00:16:23.639 a vacuum. Exactly. If you literally cannot get 00:16:23.639 --> 00:16:25.720 a government permit to enter the country or if 00:16:25.720 --> 00:16:33.220 it is physical. But then, looking at the data, 00:16:33.340 --> 00:16:36.559 you have a frog like the Nepal native, Hilarana 00:16:36.559 --> 00:16:39.279 chitwanensis. This one really confused me because 00:16:39.279 --> 00:16:41.759 the files show we actually do have data on it. 00:16:41.820 --> 00:16:43.720 We have location data, yes. Right. We know it 00:16:43.720 --> 00:16:45.919 is endemic to Nepal. We know exactly where it 00:16:45.919 --> 00:16:48.980 is, Chitwan National Park. The sources even detail 00:16:48.980 --> 00:16:52.379 its habitat preferences. Tall grasslands and 00:16:52.379 --> 00:16:55.580 sharia forests strictly under 500 meters in elevation. 00:16:55.919 --> 00:16:58.320 Down in the lowlands. Yeah. So if we know exactly 00:16:58.320 --> 00:17:01.679 where it lives and what it likes, why is it still 00:17:01.679 --> 00:17:04.920 listed by the IUCN as data deficient or threatened? 00:17:05.079 --> 00:17:07.200 Why the uncertainty? Because in conservation... 00:17:07.240 --> 00:17:09.519 biology, knowing exactly where an animal lives 00:17:09.519 --> 00:17:12.039 is not the same thing as knowing how the population 00:17:12.039 --> 00:17:14.579 as a whole is actually doing. Okay, I see. We 00:17:14.579 --> 00:17:16.660 have the location data, sure, but we completely 00:17:16.660 --> 00:17:18.579 lack the trend data. We don't know the trajectory. 00:17:18.740 --> 00:17:20.859 Is the population stable year over year? Is it 00:17:20.859 --> 00:17:23.670 slowly crashing? We know for a fact that the 00:17:23.670 --> 00:17:25.869 severe threats are present in the area. There's 00:17:25.869 --> 00:17:29.470 heavy logging, agricultural expansion, dam construction. 00:17:29.849 --> 00:17:32.069 But no one is out there counting the actual frogs 00:17:32.069 --> 00:17:35.269 every spring. Right. Without a reliable historical 00:17:35.269 --> 00:17:38.710 baseline count, we are just flying blind. We 00:17:38.710 --> 00:17:41.380 can guess they are in trouble. But we can't prove 00:17:41.380 --> 00:17:43.839 it mathematically. So you can't definitively 00:17:43.839 --> 00:17:46.539 say the species is endangered because you don't 00:17:46.539 --> 00:17:48.640 have the hard spreadsheet numbers to prove the 00:17:48.640 --> 00:17:51.279 decline. But you obviously can't say it is safe 00:17:51.279 --> 00:17:53.740 because you can literally hear the chainsaws 00:17:53.740 --> 00:17:56.759 a mile away. Exactly. You are stuck in limbo. 00:17:57.180 --> 00:18:00.019 And in the massive global bureaucracy of wildlife 00:18:00.019 --> 00:18:03.119 conservation, if you cannot empirically prove 00:18:03.119 --> 00:18:06.460 a species is in dire trouble, it very rarely 00:18:06.460 --> 00:18:08.740 gets the emergency funding or the legal protection 00:18:08.740 --> 00:18:11.880 it needs. Data deficient is very often just a 00:18:11.880 --> 00:18:14.430 quiet waiting room for extinction. There is one 00:18:14.430 --> 00:18:16.549 frog in this stack of papers, though, where we 00:18:16.549 --> 00:18:18.269 have definitely left the waiting room. We know 00:18:18.269 --> 00:18:20.049 exactly what is happening to it, and the news 00:18:20.049 --> 00:18:22.509 is not good at all. The Langbeam Plateau Frog. 00:18:22.809 --> 00:18:25.430 Hi, Lorana Montevago. We are moving over to Vietnam 00:18:25.430 --> 00:18:27.589 for this one. Right, up into the southern central 00:18:27.589 --> 00:18:30.970 highlands. And the sources are very clear. This 00:18:30.970 --> 00:18:33.789 is a high -altitude species. It lives strictly 00:18:33.789 --> 00:18:37.009 between 1 ,500 and 2 ,000 meters above sea level. 00:18:37.339 --> 00:18:40.460 And unlike the ghosts in Indonesia or the tough 00:18:40.460 --> 00:18:43.099 generalists in Cambodia, this one is officially 00:18:43.099 --> 00:18:46.220 and confirmed endangered. This is a textbook, 00:18:46.460 --> 00:18:49.960 classic case of range restriction. The Langbian 00:18:49.960 --> 00:18:53.160 Plateau is what biologists call a sky island. 00:18:53.400 --> 00:18:56.119 A sky island. Yeah, it is a highly specific, 00:18:56.339 --> 00:18:59.690 cool, wet... elevated mountain ecosystem that 00:18:59.690 --> 00:19:02.829 is completely surrounded by a sea of much warmer, 00:19:02.869 --> 00:19:05.049 drier lowlands. Like an island in the ocean, 00:19:05.130 --> 00:19:08.109 but made of altitude? Exactly. And over millennia, 00:19:08.109 --> 00:19:10.569 this frog has perfectly adapted to the specific 00:19:10.569 --> 00:19:12.990 climate of that sky island. I noticed the research 00:19:12.990 --> 00:19:15.250 papers actually had to correct a major misconception 00:19:15.250 --> 00:19:18.009 about this frog's range, too. Apparently for 00:19:18.009 --> 00:19:19.910 a while there were official records stating this 00:19:19.910 --> 00:19:22.410 frog also lived over in Thailand. Yes, and that 00:19:22.410 --> 00:19:24.349 administrative error gave conservationists a 00:19:24.349 --> 00:19:26.390 really false sense of security for a long time. 00:19:26.509 --> 00:19:28.269 They looked at the map and thought, well, it 00:19:28.269 --> 00:19:30.450 is over here in Vietnam and it is way over there 00:19:30.450 --> 00:19:32.509 in Thailand, so it must have a massive healthy 00:19:32.509 --> 00:19:34.650 range across the continent. But it didn't. No. 00:19:35.130 --> 00:19:37.990 When modern scientists finally looked much closer 00:19:37.990 --> 00:19:40.230 at the genetics and the subtle morphology of 00:19:40.230 --> 00:19:43.130 those Thailand frogs, they realized they were 00:19:43.130 --> 00:19:45.910 looking at a completely different species. Oh, 00:19:45.910 --> 00:19:49.750 wow. Yeah. Hilarana Montevaga is entirely endemic 00:19:49.750 --> 00:19:53.450 to just that one single plateau in Vietnam, nowhere 00:19:53.450 --> 00:19:56.029 else on Earth. So the entire planetary supply 00:19:56.029 --> 00:19:59.549 of this specific frog is restricted to one mountain 00:19:59.549 --> 00:20:02.049 range. And unfortunately for the frog, that mountain 00:20:02.049 --> 00:20:04.829 range is incredibly prime real estate. for humans. 00:20:05.150 --> 00:20:07.690 Human agriculture is steadily pushing further 00:20:07.690 --> 00:20:09.829 and further up those slopes. They're clearing 00:20:09.829 --> 00:20:12.710 the evergreen forests to plant coffee and high 00:20:12.710 --> 00:20:14.750 altitude vegetables. And the sources mention 00:20:14.750 --> 00:20:17.829 aquaculture too. Yes. Farmers are damming and 00:20:17.829 --> 00:20:20.150 using the natural mountain streams to farm fish, 00:20:20.369 --> 00:20:22.589 which completely changes the water chemistry 00:20:22.589 --> 00:20:24.730 and destroys the natural flow the frogs need 00:20:24.730 --> 00:20:26.710 to breed. It really feels like the walls are 00:20:26.710 --> 00:20:29.150 just rapidly closing in on this one because it 00:20:29.150 --> 00:20:31.390 can't go down the mountain to escape the farms, 00:20:31.470 --> 00:20:33.289 right? Because it is a high altitude specialist. 00:20:33.710 --> 00:20:35.589 would overheat. It would die in the lowlands. 00:20:35.710 --> 00:20:37.869 And it obviously can't go further up because 00:20:37.869 --> 00:20:40.609 it is already near the peak. That is the brutal 00:20:40.609 --> 00:20:43.509 reality for montane species globally right now. 00:20:43.910 --> 00:20:46.829 As the global climate steadily warms or as human 00:20:46.829 --> 00:20:49.450 agriculture inevitably moves higher up the slopes 00:20:49.450 --> 00:20:52.130 to find cooler air, these specialized animals 00:20:52.130 --> 00:20:54.930 literally run out of mountain. There's nowhere 00:20:54.930 --> 00:20:57.170 left for them to run to. So when we step back 00:20:57.170 --> 00:20:59.269 and look at this entire stack of research papers 00:20:59.269 --> 00:21:02.210 as a whole, what is the core story it is actually 00:21:02.210 --> 00:21:05.430 telling us? We have the Coquert frog thriving 00:21:05.430 --> 00:21:08.569 in flooded rice paddies, basically just incorporating 00:21:08.569 --> 00:21:11.309 itself into human agriculture. And on the other 00:21:11.309 --> 00:21:13.730 extreme, we have the Langbian frog trapped on 00:21:13.730 --> 00:21:16.029 a shrinking mountain in Vietnam. The overarching 00:21:16.029 --> 00:21:19.130 story is that biodiversity is not just one monolithic 00:21:19.130 --> 00:21:22.009 thing. There isn't simply one single version 00:21:22.009 --> 00:21:24.069 of nature out there that is either universally 00:21:24.069 --> 00:21:26.789 winning or universally losing is fractured, highly 00:21:26.789 --> 00:21:29.670 fractured. We are actively creating a new global 00:21:29.670 --> 00:21:31.730 environment that heavily favors the flexible. 00:21:32.240 --> 00:21:34.680 The generalids. The species that can figure out 00:21:34.680 --> 00:21:36.380 how to live in our shadow and eat our leftovers. 00:21:36.680 --> 00:21:39.000 And simultaneously, just by altering the landscape, 00:21:39.240 --> 00:21:41.599 we are systematically squeezing out the specialists. 00:21:41.980 --> 00:21:45.319 The unique lineages. Right. The incredibly unique 00:21:45.319 --> 00:21:48.079 evolutionary designs that absolutely require 00:21:48.079 --> 00:21:50.900 highly specific, stable conditions to survive. 00:21:51.369 --> 00:21:53.990 We are basically running a massive filter through 00:21:53.990 --> 00:21:56.230 the evolutionary tree right now, keeping the 00:21:56.230 --> 00:21:58.190 ones that can tolerate our presence and just 00:21:58.190 --> 00:22:00.609 losing the ones that can't. And the true tragedy 00:22:00.609 --> 00:22:03.470 of that filter is all the unique species we are 00:22:03.470 --> 00:22:06.049 almost certainly losing before we even get the 00:22:06.049 --> 00:22:08.930 chance to know they exist, like the Sumatra frog. 00:22:09.250 --> 00:22:10.910 That is the part of this deep dive that really 00:22:10.910 --> 00:22:13.049 sticks with me, the concept of the holotype, 00:22:13.170 --> 00:22:16.829 just a single glass jar on a dusty shelf in a 00:22:16.829 --> 00:22:19.069 museum somewhere. Because it represents a lost 00:22:19.069 --> 00:22:21.960 library of knowledge. Every single species that 00:22:21.960 --> 00:22:24.940 evolves is a wholly unique biological solution 00:22:24.940 --> 00:22:27.640 to the fundamental problem of survival. It represents 00:22:27.640 --> 00:22:30.119 a totally unique set of genes, novel chemical 00:22:30.119 --> 00:22:32.920 compounds, complex behaviors. Like the frog with 00:22:32.920 --> 00:22:35.099 the antimicrobial skin that could fight off staph 00:22:35.099 --> 00:22:37.599 infections. Exactly. When a species like Hilarana 00:22:37.599 --> 00:22:40.279 persimilis vanishes, assuming it really has vanished 00:22:40.279 --> 00:22:43.259 from Sumatra, we do not just lose a frog. we 00:22:43.259 --> 00:22:45.339 permanently lose the genetic knowledge that the 00:22:45.339 --> 00:22:47.640 frog carried in its cells. And we don't even 00:22:47.640 --> 00:22:49.640 know if we should be officially mourning it yet 00:22:49.640 --> 00:22:51.299 because we simply haven't looked hard enough 00:22:51.299 --> 00:22:54.000 or sequenced enough DNA. That is exactly what 00:22:54.000 --> 00:22:56.759 keeps field herpetologists awake at night. The 00:22:56.759 --> 00:22:59.500 very real fear that we are spending our careers 00:22:59.500 --> 00:23:02.819 describing entire branches of life in the past 00:23:02.819 --> 00:23:05.519 tense. It is a heavy realization to end on for 00:23:05.519 --> 00:23:08.059 sure, but I think digging into these sources 00:23:08.059 --> 00:23:10.400 completely changes how you look at a natural 00:23:10.400 --> 00:23:13.640 landscape. It isn't just pretty scenery out there. 00:23:13.759 --> 00:23:17.940 It is this intense, ongoing battlefield of taxonomic 00:23:17.940 --> 00:23:21.099 data, DNA survival, and adaptation. It absolutely 00:23:21.099 --> 00:23:23.339 is. It really leaves you with a profound question, 00:23:23.380 --> 00:23:26.180 though. If a species like that Sumatra frog is 00:23:26.180 --> 00:23:28.500 known only from a single specimen found by a 00:23:28.500 --> 00:23:31.380 lake decades ago, are we just looking for a creature 00:23:31.380 --> 00:23:33.579 that is incredibly good at hiding in the mud? 00:23:34.140 --> 00:23:35.960 Or are we literally chasing a ghost that has 00:23:35.960 --> 00:23:38.220 already vanished? You have to wonder if the real 00:23:38.220 --> 00:23:40.440 hidden world isn't just geographically hidden 00:23:40.440 --> 00:23:43.980 from us, but temporally hidden. Like we are unknowingly 00:23:43.980 --> 00:23:46.380 watching the fossil record write itself in real 00:23:46.380 --> 00:23:48.640 time. That is a fascinating way to look at it. 00:23:48.839 --> 00:23:51.299 So for everyone listening to this deep dive, 00:23:51.460 --> 00:23:53.779 the very next time you happen to be standing 00:23:53.779 --> 00:23:58.000 near a wild pond or a fast moving stream or honestly 00:23:58.000 --> 00:24:01.119 even just a muddy irrigation ditch behind a suburban 00:24:01.119 --> 00:24:03.819 parking lot, take a second to look down. You 00:24:03.819 --> 00:24:05.740 never know what is there. Exactly. You might 00:24:05.740 --> 00:24:08.279 be looking at a biological marvel that eats antibiotic 00:24:08.279 --> 00:24:11.480 resistant bacteria for breakfast. Or you might 00:24:11.480 --> 00:24:13.500 be looking at an animal that science hasn't even 00:24:13.500 --> 00:24:15.759 officially named yet. Or something that is just 00:24:15.759 --> 00:24:18.220 pretending to be something else. Right. The real 00:24:18.220 --> 00:24:20.599 drama is always in the details. Thanks for diving 00:24:20.599 --> 00:24:22.440 in with us today. We will see you next time.