WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.439 Welcome back to The Deep Dive. We are thrilled 00:00:02.439 --> 00:00:04.540 to have you here with us today. Yeah, really 00:00:04.540 --> 00:00:08.300 excited for this one. It's a bit different. It 00:00:08.300 --> 00:00:10.880 is. Usually when you join us for one of these, 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:14.000 we are standing at the base of this just massive 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:17.199 mountain of information. Right. Towering stacks 00:00:17.199 --> 00:00:20.629 of research papers. Exactly. Thick historical 00:00:20.629 --> 00:00:24.449 biographies, complex data sets. And our job is 00:00:24.449 --> 00:00:27.109 typically to act as your guides, you know, extracting 00:00:27.109 --> 00:00:30.149 the most valuable nuggets of knowledge to give 00:00:30.149 --> 00:00:32.170 you a great shortcut to being well -informed. 00:00:32.609 --> 00:00:35.289 Today, however, the source material you shared 00:00:35.289 --> 00:00:38.570 with us is incredibly sparse. Sparse is an understatement. 00:00:38.729 --> 00:00:41.789 Yeah. We are looking at a single, extremely brief 00:00:41.789 --> 00:00:44.090 Wikipedia article. Just a few lines, really. 00:00:44.189 --> 00:00:46.250 Right. And not just any Wikipedia article, but 00:00:46.250 --> 00:00:48.109 one that is specifically categorized. categorize 00:00:48.109 --> 00:00:50.770 as a stub. Which is basically Wikipedia's way 00:00:50.770 --> 00:00:53.070 of saying, hey, this thing exists, but we have 00:00:53.070 --> 00:00:55.149 virtually nothing else to say about it. Exactly. 00:00:55.270 --> 00:00:57.210 It's a placeholder. And the subject in question 00:00:57.210 --> 00:01:00.090 today is this tiny creature known as the Joby 00:01:00.090 --> 00:01:04.450 tree frog, or scientifically, Laetoria obtusirostris. 00:01:04.650 --> 00:01:07.829 And this deep dive is essentially a mystery about 00:01:07.829 --> 00:01:11.409 the very limits of human knowledge. We're exploring 00:01:11.409 --> 00:01:14.609 what happens when our desire to categorize the 00:01:14.609 --> 00:01:18.840 world runs headfirst into the vast undocumented 00:01:18.840 --> 00:01:21.579 reality of nature. And the challenge you set 00:01:21.579 --> 00:01:24.159 for us today is a really compelling one. Because 00:01:24.159 --> 00:01:26.219 we spend so much time in the information age 00:01:26.219 --> 00:01:29.659 feeling, I don't know, kind of overwhelmed by 00:01:29.659 --> 00:01:31.980 data. Oh, constantly. Right. We operate under 00:01:31.980 --> 00:01:33.900 this assumption that every square inch of the 00:01:33.900 --> 00:01:36.319 planet and every creature on it has been endlessly 00:01:36.319 --> 00:01:39.180 documented. Sequenced, filmed in high definition 00:01:39.180 --> 00:01:42.489 for nature documentaries. Exactly. But the Joby 00:01:42.489 --> 00:01:45.510 tree frog stands as this quiet rebellion against 00:01:45.510 --> 00:01:47.590 the idea that we have the entire planet mapped 00:01:47.590 --> 00:01:50.250 out. We are basically looking at an empty page 00:01:50.250 --> 00:01:52.909 here. Yeah. And the task is to extract the profound 00:01:52.909 --> 00:01:55.349 meaning hidden within the very few facts we do 00:01:55.349 --> 00:01:57.959 possess. Okay, let's unpack this. Because even 00:01:57.959 --> 00:02:00.319 though the text is sparse, there is a very specific 00:02:00.319 --> 00:02:03.219 rigid structure to how this frog is presented 00:02:03.219 --> 00:02:05.400 in our source. The taxon. Right. The article 00:02:05.400 --> 00:02:08.900 provides the frog's scientific lineage and the 00:02:08.900 --> 00:02:11.780 granularity is striking. I mean, it reads like 00:02:11.780 --> 00:02:15.219 a set of biological nesting dolls. We start with 00:02:15.219 --> 00:02:17.810 Kingdom Animalia. The biggest doll. Right. Down 00:02:17.810 --> 00:02:20.729 through phylum Chordata. Right. Class Amphibia 00:02:20.729 --> 00:02:24.250 order Anura into the family Hylidae. And from 00:02:24.250 --> 00:02:27.129 there, we reach the genus listed as Laetoria 00:02:27.129 --> 00:02:30.030 and finally a subfamily called Pila Dradenae. 00:02:30.150 --> 00:02:33.330 It is a remarkably precise address in the tree 00:02:33.330 --> 00:02:35.949 of life. Yeah. For a creature we seemingly know 00:02:35.949 --> 00:02:39.229 nothing about. Well, and that level of classification 00:02:39.229 --> 00:02:42.710 requires a highly specific initial observation. 00:02:43.760 --> 00:02:46.659 someone, at some point, had to look closely enough 00:02:46.659 --> 00:02:49.379 at a physical specimen of this animal to evaluate 00:02:49.379 --> 00:02:51.900 its morphology. Right, to actually place it accurately 00:02:51.900 --> 00:02:54.759 into all of those taxonomic boxes. Exactly. And 00:02:54.759 --> 00:02:56.719 the source material gives us a critical detail 00:02:56.719 --> 00:02:58.979 about exactly when that initial observation happened. 00:02:59.139 --> 00:03:02.240 Yeah, it does. The binomial name, Laetoria obtusigrostris, 00:03:02.400 --> 00:03:05.300 is listed right next to the name Meyer, followed 00:03:05.300 --> 00:03:09.460 by a date. 1875. 1875. The sheer gap between 00:03:09.460 --> 00:03:12.620 that date and our current era completely changes 00:03:12.620 --> 00:03:16.099 how we have to view this Wikipedia stub. It really 00:03:16.099 --> 00:03:17.740 does. I mean, we are talking about the Victorian 00:03:17.740 --> 00:03:21.240 era. It forces you to think about the physical 00:03:21.240 --> 00:03:23.800 reality of how this frog was cataloged. This 00:03:23.800 --> 00:03:26.620 wasn't a digital upload. This was an era of naturalists 00:03:26.620 --> 00:03:29.939 traveling by ship. Preserving specimens in glass 00:03:29.939 --> 00:03:33.370 jars. Yes. The smell of formaldehyde, entering 00:03:33.370 --> 00:03:35.650 them into the official record of human knowledge 00:03:35.650 --> 00:03:38.569 through hand -drawn sketches and manual morphological 00:03:38.569 --> 00:03:41.490 measurements. And that historical context is 00:03:41.490 --> 00:03:44.270 just vital here. Meyer, and the source doesn't 00:03:44.270 --> 00:03:45.949 even elaborate on who Meyer was, by the way. 00:03:46.030 --> 00:03:48.250 Right, just Meyer. Meyer examined this frog, 00:03:48.490 --> 00:03:51.250 recognized its distinct physical characteristics, 00:03:51.530 --> 00:03:54.090 perhaps the shape of its snout, given the Latin 00:03:54.090 --> 00:03:56.550 abducerostris. Oh, interesting, right. And formally 00:03:56.550 --> 00:03:59.360 described it over a century and a half ago. It 00:03:59.360 --> 00:04:01.939 has been a known entity on this planet, sitting 00:04:01.939 --> 00:04:05.919 in our scientific ledgers for 150 years. Yet 00:04:05.919 --> 00:04:08.659 the biological description from 1875 appears 00:04:08.659 --> 00:04:10.879 to be where our understanding of the animal both 00:04:10.879 --> 00:04:14.110 began and abruptly ended. Which brings us to 00:04:14.110 --> 00:04:15.810 the geography of where this specimen actually 00:04:15.810 --> 00:04:19.149 originated. The source explicitly states that 00:04:19.149 --> 00:04:21.930 the Joby tree frog is endemic to West Papua, 00:04:22.029 --> 00:04:24.709 Indonesia. And the word endemic is doing a lot 00:04:24.709 --> 00:04:26.649 of heavy lifting there. It really is. Because 00:04:26.649 --> 00:04:28.750 in a biological context, it doesn't just indicate 00:04:28.750 --> 00:04:31.810 origin. It dictates absolute restriction. Right. 00:04:31.870 --> 00:04:34.509 It lives only there. Exactly. The species lives 00:04:34.509 --> 00:04:37.810 only in that specific geographic region and literally 00:04:37.810 --> 00:04:41.199 nowhere else on Earth. And West Papua is renowned 00:04:41.199 --> 00:04:45.639 for its incredibly rugged remote terrain. Yeah, 00:04:45.699 --> 00:04:49.319 we are talking about. Dense, largely impenetrable 00:04:49.319 --> 00:04:52.319 rainforests. Steep mountainous regions. Highly 00:04:52.319 --> 00:04:55.199 isolated microhabitats. The topography of New 00:04:55.199 --> 00:04:58.339 Guinea as a whole enforces that kind of strict 00:04:58.339 --> 00:05:01.819 endemism. You have these massive ridges and deep 00:05:01.819 --> 00:05:04.279 valleys that act as natural walls, just isolating 00:05:04.279 --> 00:05:07.060 species for millennia. Right. So the Joby tree 00:05:07.060 --> 00:05:09.620 frog's geographical exclusivity provides this 00:05:09.620 --> 00:05:11.939 massive logistical clue as to why the scientific 00:05:11.939 --> 00:05:14.759 record has been stalled since 1875. It's just 00:05:14.759 --> 00:05:17.529 too hard to get to. Exactly. Conducting a comprehensive 00:05:17.529 --> 00:05:20.250 biological survey in the remote forests of West 00:05:20.250 --> 00:05:23.610 Papua is a monumental undertaking. It is not 00:05:23.610 --> 00:05:25.670 an environment where researchers can just easily 00:05:25.670 --> 00:05:28.850 set up long -term observation camps to study 00:05:28.850 --> 00:05:31.370 the daily habits of a highly elusive amphibian. 00:05:31.449 --> 00:05:34.550 No, absolutely not. The isolation acts as a barrier 00:05:34.550 --> 00:05:37.709 to both the frog's physical expansion and our 00:05:37.709 --> 00:05:40.310 scientific comprehension of it. Right. When an 00:05:40.310 --> 00:05:43.569 animal exists only in one highly remote, heavily 00:05:43.569 --> 00:05:47.360 forested location, Locating a stable population, 00:05:47.639 --> 00:05:50.600 let alone observing its life cycle, becomes a 00:05:50.600 --> 00:05:53.319 search for a needle in a continent -sized haystack. 00:05:53.560 --> 00:05:56.079 And that logistical reality perfectly sets up 00:05:56.079 --> 00:05:58.040 the most striking detail in the entire source 00:05:58.040 --> 00:05:59.879 document. Yeah, this is the part that really 00:05:59.879 --> 00:06:02.699 got me. According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened 00:06:02.699 --> 00:06:05.980 Species, the Joby tree frog's conservation status 00:06:05.980 --> 00:06:08.879 is listed as data deficient. The source notes 00:06:08.879 --> 00:06:12.000 this was assessed under IUCN version 3 .1 by 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:15.480 the IUCN SSC Amphibian Specialist Group. And 00:06:15.480 --> 00:06:18.540 the year of this assessment was 2020. 2020. Now 00:06:18.540 --> 00:06:20.420 let me play Dell's advocate for just a second 00:06:20.420 --> 00:06:22.860 here. Sure. When you see a label like data... 00:06:22.860 --> 00:06:25.019 efficient attached to a creature discovered back 00:06:25.019 --> 00:06:28.199 in 1875, couldn't that just be a bureaucratic 00:06:28.199 --> 00:06:30.920 artifact? Like a filing error. Yeah. Like, is 00:06:30.920 --> 00:06:32.800 it possible this is merely an administrative 00:06:32.800 --> 00:06:35.540 backlog, a case of lost paperwork, rather than 00:06:35.540 --> 00:06:38.160 a genuine scientific mystery? What's fascinating 00:06:38.160 --> 00:06:41.480 here is the sheer rigor behind an IUCN assessment, 00:06:41.720 --> 00:06:44.500 which pretty much precludes it from being a simple 00:06:44.500 --> 00:06:47.540 administrative oversight. Okay. The IUCN Red 00:06:47.540 --> 00:06:50.990 List. is the global gold standard for tracking 00:06:50.990 --> 00:06:53.850 the health of animal populations. The amphibian 00:06:53.850 --> 00:06:56.670 specialist group consists of the absolute foremost 00:06:56.670 --> 00:06:59.870 herpetologists and conservationists on the planet. 00:06:59.949 --> 00:07:02.189 Right. These are the experts. Right. And when 00:07:02.189 --> 00:07:04.069 they convene to evaluate a species under the 00:07:04.069 --> 00:07:06.670 version 3 .1 guidelines, they are synthesizing 00:07:06.670 --> 00:07:09.519 all available global data. Historical records, 00:07:09.680 --> 00:07:11.540 field surveys, everything. They're looking everywhere. 00:07:11.939 --> 00:07:14.740 Exactly. So to officially publish a status of 00:07:14.740 --> 00:07:17.519 data deficient is an active, heavily debated 00:07:17.519 --> 00:07:20.120 scientific ruling. It is a formal declaration 00:07:20.120 --> 00:07:23.279 by the world's leading experts that after an 00:07:23.279 --> 00:07:25.980 exhaustive review, there is simply not enough 00:07:25.980 --> 00:07:29.220 empirical information to make any judgment whatsoever 00:07:29.220 --> 00:07:32.360 about the species' population size, its geographic 00:07:32.360 --> 00:07:35.860 range trends, or its risk of extinction. Here's 00:07:35.860 --> 00:07:38.709 where it gets really interesting. When you juxtapose 00:07:38.709 --> 00:07:43.029 that 1875 discovery date with the 2020 IUCN assessment, 00:07:43.389 --> 00:07:46.490 the resulting paradox is staggering. It really 00:07:46.490 --> 00:07:49.069 is. Meyer discovers and describes this frog, 00:07:49.250 --> 00:07:52.389 places it in the taxonomic record, and then 145 00:07:52.389 --> 00:07:54.930 years pass. A century and a half. We experience 00:07:54.930 --> 00:07:57.750 the entirety of the 20th century. The advent 00:07:57.750 --> 00:08:00.610 of global air travel. Satellite mapping. Satellite 00:08:00.610 --> 00:08:02.610 mapping. The sequencing of the human genome. 00:08:02.670 --> 00:08:05.750 The creation of the internet. We map the ocean 00:08:05.750 --> 00:08:10.089 floor. We put rovers on Mars. Yet 145 years later, 00:08:10.209 --> 00:08:12.790 the top amphibian experts on Earth look at the 00:08:12.790 --> 00:08:15.870 Joby tree frog and formally admit total ignorance 00:08:15.870 --> 00:08:18.509 regarding its ecological status. It's a profound 00:08:18.509 --> 00:08:20.790 paradox. And it really highlights the difference 00:08:20.790 --> 00:08:23.709 between morphological taxonomy and actual ecological 00:08:23.709 --> 00:08:26.129 understanding. Right. Naming something versus 00:08:26.129 --> 00:08:29.290 knowing it. Precisely. We possess the scientific 00:08:29.290 --> 00:08:31.730 name, we have the precise taxonomic lineage, 00:08:31.990 --> 00:08:35.850 the broad geographic origin, but we possess zero 00:08:35.850 --> 00:08:39.110 knowledge of how the animal actually lives. Right. 00:08:39.210 --> 00:08:42.149 Like, what is its diet? We don't know. How does 00:08:42.149 --> 00:08:45.190 it reproduce? No idea. What specific microhabitat 00:08:45.190 --> 00:08:47.289 does it require? What does it sound like? What's 00:08:47.289 --> 00:08:49.990 its vocalization? The source provides absolutely 00:08:49.990 --> 00:08:52.470 no answers to these fundamental biological questions 00:08:52.470 --> 00:08:54.929 because that data simply has not been collected 00:08:54.929 --> 00:08:57.429 since the initial physical specimen was documented. 00:08:57.669 --> 00:09:00.730 And that gap, that huge void between cataloging 00:09:00.730 --> 00:09:03.529 and knowing, brings us to what might be the most 00:09:03.529 --> 00:09:07.129 fascinating, almost meta -level aspect of this 00:09:07.129 --> 00:09:09.149 whole deep dive. Yeah, looking at the actual 00:09:09.149 --> 00:09:11.649 source itself. Right. Let's analyze the source 00:09:11.649 --> 00:09:14.710 document itself as a modern artifact. It is a 00:09:14.710 --> 00:09:17.789 Wikipedia page last edited on October 4, 2025. 00:09:18.309 --> 00:09:20.490 But when you examine the structure of the page, 00:09:20.690 --> 00:09:23.210 it is overwhelmingly weighted toward metadata 00:09:23.210 --> 00:09:26.210 rather than actual biological data. The architecture 00:09:26.210 --> 00:09:27.909 of the information here is remarkable, and I 00:09:27.909 --> 00:09:29.850 think it's highly indicative of how we process 00:09:29.850 --> 00:09:32.679 knowledge today. It really is. It boasts this 00:09:32.679 --> 00:09:35.700 extensive list of taxon identifiers. I mean, 00:09:35.759 --> 00:09:39.159 the Joby tree frog is cross -referenced in Wikidata. 00:09:39.399 --> 00:09:42.460 Amphibia web. BioLib iNaturalist. The Global 00:09:42.460 --> 00:09:45.460 Biodiversity Information Facility. The Encyclopedia 00:09:45.460 --> 00:09:48.799 of Life. The Open Tree of Life. The digital footprint 00:09:48.799 --> 00:09:52.320 for this frog is massive. Furthermore, the source 00:09:52.320 --> 00:09:54.679 notes the article is available in 12 different 00:09:54.679 --> 00:09:57.740 languages. You can access this exact same lack 00:09:57.740 --> 00:10:01.460 of information in Egyptian Arabic, Catalan, Spanish, 00:10:01.779 --> 00:10:05.620 French, Vietnamese, Swedish, and Turkish. If 00:10:05.620 --> 00:10:07.659 we connect this to the bigger picture, it says 00:10:07.659 --> 00:10:09.759 something quite profound about the algorithmic 00:10:09.759 --> 00:10:12.009 nature. of the modern information age. How so? 00:10:12.350 --> 00:10:15.529 Well, we have built an incredibly complex, robust 00:10:15.529 --> 00:10:18.470 digital infrastructure to catalog life on this 00:10:18.470 --> 00:10:21.529 planet. We deploy bots and algorithms to scrape 00:10:21.529 --> 00:10:24.490 taxonomic databases and auto -generate translated 00:10:24.490 --> 00:10:27.210 Wikipedia pages across dozens of languages. Right, 00:10:27.250 --> 00:10:29.409 without human intervention. Exactly. We have 00:10:29.409 --> 00:10:31.610 global databases that cross -reference each other 00:10:31.610 --> 00:10:33.730 in milliseconds. The source even highlights a 00:10:33.730 --> 00:10:36.370 highly specific digital identifier assigned solely 00:10:36.370 --> 00:10:39.409 to that 2020 IUCN assessment. Oh, right. It was 00:10:39.409 --> 00:10:47.169 something like EDOT T557. Yeah, EDOT T55743A152545457. 00:10:47.269 --> 00:10:50.370 Right. It is this hyper -specific alphanumeric 00:10:50.370 --> 00:10:53.590 tag pointing to a void. We have neatly filed 00:10:53.590 --> 00:10:55.710 this creature into precise digital categories. 00:10:56.470 --> 00:10:58.909 Amphibians of Western New Guinea. Amphibians 00:10:58.909 --> 00:11:02.830 described in 1875. IUCN Red List Data Deficient 00:11:02.830 --> 00:11:05.889 Species. We have constructed this massive, sophisticated 00:11:05.889 --> 00:11:09.299 digital mansion. Yet when you open the door to 00:11:09.299 --> 00:11:12.559 the room labeled Latoria Obtusa Rostris, the 00:11:12.559 --> 00:11:15.500 room is completely empty. The architecture is 00:11:15.500 --> 00:11:17.519 holding nothing but its own structural code. 00:11:17.740 --> 00:11:19.779 And that digital infrastructure is meticulously 00:11:19.779 --> 00:11:22.460 maintained, but it cannot generate field data. 00:11:22.600 --> 00:11:24.980 The algorithms can translate the taxonomy into 00:11:24.980 --> 00:11:27.639 Catalan or Vietnamese, but they cannot tell us 00:11:27.639 --> 00:11:30.100 what the frog eats. Right. We've created an illusion 00:11:30.100 --> 00:11:32.500 of omniscience. Because we can pull up a densely 00:11:32.500 --> 00:11:34.799 hyperlinked page with specific identifiers and 00:11:34.799 --> 00:11:37.279 global database cross -references, we assume... 00:11:37.289 --> 00:11:39.330 a level of mastery over the natural world. That's 00:11:39.330 --> 00:11:41.009 a great point. But the Joby Tree Frog proves 00:11:41.009 --> 00:11:43.190 that building a perfect filing cabinet is not 00:11:43.190 --> 00:11:44.929 the same as understanding the files within it. 00:11:45.200 --> 00:11:48.379 And that perfectly frames the final, somewhat 00:11:48.379 --> 00:11:50.440 poignant detail from our source today. Yeah, 00:11:50.480 --> 00:11:52.519 the text at the very bottom. At the very bottom 00:11:52.519 --> 00:11:55.740 of the page, beneath that nested taxonomy, beneath 00:11:55.740 --> 00:11:59.460 the 1875 discovery date, the data deficient status, 00:11:59.840 --> 00:12:02.720 and that towering list of digital identifiers, 00:12:02.919 --> 00:12:06.440 there is a very simple sentence. This Pella Drydeni 00:12:06.440 --> 00:12:09.639 article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by 00:12:09.639 --> 00:12:12.049 adding missing information. It's the standard 00:12:12.049 --> 00:12:14.429 Wikipedia call to action. We've all seen it a 00:12:14.429 --> 00:12:16.740 million times. Right. But in this context, it 00:12:16.740 --> 00:12:19.259 carries immense weight. It does. It asks the 00:12:19.259 --> 00:12:21.340 reader, you, the listener, to help by adding 00:12:21.340 --> 00:12:24.120 missing information. But the reality of the Joby 00:12:24.120 --> 00:12:26.700 tree frog dictates that you cannot simply run 00:12:26.700 --> 00:12:29.019 a deeper Internet search to solve this problem. 00:12:29.299 --> 00:12:31.159 No, you can't. The information doesn't exist 00:12:31.159 --> 00:12:32.980 on the Internet because it hasn't been gathered 00:12:32.980 --> 00:12:35.960 in the physical world. To genuinely answer that 00:12:35.960 --> 00:12:38.000 call for help, someone cannot just sit at a keyboard. 00:12:38.259 --> 00:12:40.120 They literally have to put on a pair of boots, 00:12:40.379 --> 00:12:43.299 mount an expedition to the remote rainforests 00:12:43.299 --> 00:12:46.059 of West Papua, and read. discover a frog that 00:12:46.059 --> 00:12:48.360 has eluded human documentation for a century 00:12:48.360 --> 00:12:50.960 and a half? It underscores the stark boundary 00:12:50.960 --> 00:12:54.179 between the digital world and the physical biosphere. 00:12:54.679 --> 00:12:57.299 We have mapped the genome, we've built the global 00:12:57.299 --> 00:12:59.779 databases, but we have not mapped the forest 00:12:59.779 --> 00:13:02.840 floor of West Papua. Not even close. The stub 00:13:02.840 --> 00:13:04.679 is a reminder that our digital tools, no matter 00:13:04.679 --> 00:13:07.340 how advanced they get, cannot replace the necessity 00:13:07.340 --> 00:13:09.559 of physical, boots -on -the -ground scientific 00:13:09.559 --> 00:13:12.059 exploration. So what does this all mean? You 00:13:12.059 --> 00:13:13.960 brought us a source today that initially looked 00:13:13.960 --> 00:13:17.080 like a nearly blank index card. A name, a remote 00:13:17.080 --> 00:13:20.620 location, a Victorian -era date. And a data -deficient 00:13:20.620 --> 00:13:23.620 label. But by unpacking the implications of those 00:13:23.620 --> 00:13:26.860 few sparse facts, we didn't just trace the outline 00:13:26.860 --> 00:13:30.360 of a tiny frog in Indonesia. We mapped the boundaries 00:13:30.360 --> 00:13:33.220 of human knowledge itself. We examined the massive 00:13:33.220 --> 00:13:36.320 gap between a naturalist putting a specimen in 00:13:36.320 --> 00:13:39.820 a jar in 1875 and a global council of experts 00:13:39.820 --> 00:13:42.639 just throwing their hands up in 2020. And in 00:13:42.639 --> 00:13:44.580 a world where we are constantly inundated with 00:13:44.580 --> 00:13:47.080 massive data sets, predictive algorithms, and 00:13:47.080 --> 00:13:48.799 the feeling that everything is already known 00:13:48.799 --> 00:13:51.940 and quantified, the Joby Tree Frog serves as 00:13:51.940 --> 00:13:54.799 a necessary grounding reality check. It proves 00:13:54.799 --> 00:13:57.620 that the world is not fully mapped. The natural 00:13:57.620 --> 00:14:00.480 world still holds profound mysteries that are 00:14:00.480 --> 00:14:02.899 completely independent of our digital databases. 00:14:03.320 --> 00:14:06.960 The Book of Life on Earth still contains vast 00:14:06.960 --> 00:14:09.940 blank pages. It absolutely pulls you out of the 00:14:09.940 --> 00:14:12.519 digital ecosystem and reminds you of the wild, 00:14:12.620 --> 00:14:15.240 undocumented reality still breathing out there 00:14:15.240 --> 00:14:17.570 in the dark. This raises an important question, 00:14:17.649 --> 00:14:19.149 and it is a thought I want to leave you with 00:14:19.149 --> 00:14:21.990 today. We have spent this deep dive exploring 00:14:21.990 --> 00:14:25.169 our incredible automated machinery for cataloging 00:14:25.169 --> 00:14:27.549 nature. The algorithms, the cross -references, 00:14:27.629 --> 00:14:29.929 the 12 languages. But what happens when that 00:14:29.929 --> 00:14:32.830 digital infrastructure outlasts the physical 00:14:32.830 --> 00:14:35.210 ecosystem it was built to describe? Oh, wow. 00:14:35.529 --> 00:14:38.470 If a creature identified in 1875 has remained 00:14:38.470 --> 00:14:42.649 unseen and unstudied for 150 years, is it possible 00:14:42.649 --> 00:14:45.190 our obsession with building these Perfect digital 00:14:45.190 --> 00:14:48.350 taxonomies is giving us a false sense of security. 00:14:48.590 --> 00:14:50.409 That we're tracking things that might not even 00:14:50.409 --> 00:14:54.350 be there anymore. Exactly. We might be meticulously 00:14:54.350 --> 00:14:57.309 categorizing. tagging, and cross -referencing 00:14:57.309 --> 00:15:00.549 ghosts? Are we so focused on perfecting the metadata 00:15:00.549 --> 00:15:04.149 of the natural world that we are distracted from 00:15:04.149 --> 00:15:06.750 the reality that these profound unknowns might 00:15:06.750 --> 00:15:09.250 vanish from the physical world before we ever 00:15:09.250 --> 00:15:11.529 truly know them? That is a haunting and vital 00:15:11.529 --> 00:15:13.429 perspective to end on, the difference between 00:15:13.429 --> 00:15:15.769 cataloging a species and actually knowing it 00:15:15.769 --> 00:15:18.149 before it's gone. Thank you so much for exploring 00:15:18.149 --> 00:15:20.129 the great unknown with us today. Keep asking 00:15:20.129 --> 00:15:22.210 questions, keep looking closer, and we will catch 00:15:22.210 --> 00:15:23.549 you on the next Deep Dive.