Title? Eh, can't be bothered.

The Amphibian Foundation is a fantastic non-profit organisation in Atlanta, Georgia, dedicated to the conservation of amphibians and promoting awareness of the global amphibian declines! Through research, conservation, education, and an ever growing partnership base of passionate people and organizations, they hope to create lasting solutions to amphibian declines.

I think one of the reasons I'm posting so very few dinosaurs lately is that I used to do them very quick and bad on purpose and now I generally spend more time on them, and I suppose that makes it harder to do the quick bad ones. so here is a very bad lemon creature I spent very little time on. it's not even a dinosaur it's just a lemon with legs and eyeball.

This is just a Frog™, right?

Wrong. These four frogs belong to four different families (respectively, Dicroglossidae: Limnonectes paramacrodon, Ranidae: Rana temporaria, Mantellidae: Aglyptodactylus madagascariensis, and Pyxicephalidae: Amietia tenuoplicata) from across the world (respectively, I took these photos in Borneo, Denmark, Madagascar, and Tanzania).

These represent just some of the huge number of genera across more than half a dozen families that have independently produced species that look like this:

In Europe: Ranidae: Rana. In North America: Ranidae: Boreorana/Lithobates. In South America: Leptodactylidae: Leptodactylus. In Africa: Pyxicephalidae: Amietia or Arthroleptidae: Arthroleptis. In Madagascar: Mantellidae: Aglyptodactylus. In mainland Asia: any of a dozen or more genera of the family Ranidae; or Ranixalidae: Indirana. In Australia: Pelodryadidae: Rhyaconastes. and more, besides!

Why? Well… that is kind of a fundamental question in evolutionary biology. Why, with the infinite theoretical possibilities of evolutionary processes, do we see the same kind of anatomies evolving again and again? Does this mean that evolution is in some way predictable?

The answer is complex (there are good books on this topic!), but basically, yes: similar pressures can (but do not always) lead to similar solutions. I think this may apply to frogs to an exceptional degree, in part because their body plans are so simple to start with, that the tools available for tinkering are pretty streamlined and refined. These are just one stark example, but you can do this with whole ecological assemblages of frogs in some cases. Madagascar is especially excellent for this, because the island was only naturally colonised by frogs five times, and yet you have practically every main 'type' of frog there, independently derived from one of these colonising lineages.

Yet, each of these generic brown frogs is also subtly different—and their skeletons reveal pretty fundamental differences unique to their lineages. Not to mention their totally distinct tadpoles!! And that is part of the key, too: although some parts of evolution can be predictable, no organism can separate itself from its own evolutionary past. There is always a degree of contingency involved.

I find these frogs to be a really elegant demonstration of this principle. And also, a nice demonstration of why it is fucking impossible to ID frog pictures you guys send me without a more or less precise location.

I’ve actually been involved in description of 103 frogs to date 😅

guys. guys. guys.

These are also the frogs that bury themselves in a backwards spiral that is seriously relatable.

That being said, I think my celebrity here has maybe been exaggerated. I just crossed 50,000 followers on tumblr—a huge milestone for me and one I am very proud of. But nowhere near the number I think some people imagine, and far fewer than even a minor celebrity on e.g. Twitter. I’m not sure how it stacks up against Linda Carter or Wil Wheaton, but that’s not really something I care about, because what matters to me is the engagement. And that has been wonderful <3

cheers to that 🍺

inspired by this picture saved in my gallery

Artwork by A. Petzold, CC BY-ND 4.0

At the right time of year along rushing streams in the humid rainforests that stretch the length of Madagascar's eastern and northern mountain ridges, otherworldly trills of piercing whistles can be heard.

Are they birds? Insects? Communicator beeps? Tricorder noises?

No, they're little treefrogs!

Boophis janewayae. Photo by M. Vences, CC BY-SA 4.0

Until recently, we thought all of the populations of these little brown frogs across the island were one widespread species, Boophis marojezensis, described in 1994. But genetics in the early 2000s and 2010s showed that there were several species here, not just one.

Now my colleagues and I have shown that they are in fact eight separate species, each with unique calls!

These whistling sounds reminded us so much of Star Trek sound effects that we decided to name the seven new species after Star Trek captains: Boophis kirki, B. picardi, B. janewayae, B. siskoi, B. pikei, B. archeri, and B. burnhamae.

Photos of all new species described by Vences et al. 2024. CC BY-SA 4.0

I subtly and not-so-subtly built some Star Trek references into the paper, but probably the best one is this one:

'Finding these frogs sometimes requires considerable trekking; pursuing strange new calls, to seek out new frogs in new forests; boldly going where no herpetologist has gone before.'

— Vences et al. 2024

There’s a real sense of scientific discovery and exploration here, which we think is in the spirit of Star Trek.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that there are at least two Trekkies amongst the authors (including yours truly). As fans of Star Trek, we are also just pleased to dedicate these new species to the characters who have inspired and entertained us over the decades.

On a personal note, this marks a milestone for me, as it means I have now described over 100 frog species! I am very pleased that the 100th is Captain Janeway's Bright-eyed Frog, Boophis janewayae (if you count them in order of appearance in the paper)—she is probably my favourite captain, and I really love Star Trek: Voyager.

I'd just missed Gully sitting by the river, so I checked the playback and saw that he hadn't stayed for very long. So I figured, "hey, why not grab a video of him sitting on the bank so people who don't watch the cams get The Full Gully Experience™️?"

Cue my utter surprise (and delight) to discover while recording that the reason he'd left so quickly was that he'd caught a big fish! No wonder he was so wiggly while sitting here. You can tell by his body language when he's just sitting and when he's actually seen something of interest.