He Spent His Career Studying a Frog. Then He Discovered Its True Identity. | Short Film Showcase
[Music] So, after all the different tree frogs, there is one group that really captivated my interest, and that was the leaf frogs. You can just imagine seeing one of those in the wild; it's just incredible. You know, the great big eyes open, they've got all bright colors all over—just an incredible family.
But 25 years ago, I was very lonely knowing about these frogs. Out of all those leaf frogs, there was one in particular that nobody knew anything about, and it was very, very rare—it was that splendid leaf frog. I was on a mission to find this frog. It took five years to find the first one, and it was incredible. You know, that was my frog; that was the one I really wanted to work with.
I got special permission to collect them, brought them back to the museum, and bred them for the first time in the world in Manchester. I did my thesis on the frog, describing its biology, the tough whole development that had never been described before, and it really became my frog.
People often think of museums as kind of dead spaces, filled with all this dead stuff. But actually, the museum is alive, and not least the vivarium, which is full of live animals. So it's the heart of what we do, sharing that with the public in really compelling ways that are going to capture their imagination.
Frogs are naturally very sensitive species, and the frog species that we're working with are extremely rare and endangered. So it's really, really important that we take extremely good care of them because when they're gone, they're gone. We're dealing with a very small population already.
When we talk about museum collections—Natural History collections, insects, mammals, loads of other collections—basically, specimens themselves represent physical proof that this particular species occurs in that particular part of the world. We need to keep them in order to show to prove that this species is different because there was actually another species that was very closely related, as they lived in the Amazon area.
After studying the splendid leaf frog, I really wanted to find that one, so I went to South America to actually look for that particular one. But while I was there, I came across another leaf frog that didn't fit with either of them. Straight away, I realized that it was different. You know, seeing something like that—it was just mind-blowing, really.
But that's done work and plucking! Can I put it really? It just blew me away. It was like magic. Below be, second Coletti, the time they enough permits to collect it. I started to leave it where it was, actually thinking, "Will I be able to come back and find another one, or will I ever see this frog again?" I think that was the worst, really, thinking I've got to take a photograph of it and know that it's different, but there's nothing I can do about it.
Then last year, I was able to get some from Ecuador. When I got those specimens, it was just magical seeing them. These were the ones I found; this was exactly the same as the one that I'd seen in there. I could tell it was completely different from the splendid leaf frog, and it just rekindled everything.
If you want to describe new species, you need to fix a specimen that becomes a standard for these particular species' names. It's similar to how we have a standard of weight, standard of length, standard for various measures. You get the neutral medical institutions, and here at the Natural History Museum, we keep standards of scientific names.
When you name something, it's always possible for people to disagree on what that thing is. By having a permanent record in museums of these specimens, we can always sort out disagreements because we can actually look at what someone thought a species was when it was described. Without specimens like this type, we wouldn't be able to describe new specimens because we wouldn't have anything to compare them to.
That's essential to understand what different species are. So, in order to describe the new species I found in Ecuador, I needed to compare it to the original specimen that was collected over a hundred years ago that was named splendid leaf frog. That specimen was actually located at the British Museum. When I went there to get the type specimen, the splendid leaf frog, to compare it to my new one, I realized that they were the same. Everything changed because it had already been described.
The one from Ecuador was the splendid leaf frog, and it was incredible just to have that realization at the time. Actually, the one everybody knows—the one I've been working with for so long—was the new species. It's almost been like a mystery—thinking about how this confusion could have happened, delving into museum records, trying to find out exactly how this has happened.
It turns out there's one specimen from 1927 that was collected in Panama. It was taken back to America, and they said that this frog was the same as the one that was brought back to the British Museum. But it wasn't; it was a different species. At that time, nobody compared their two.
Over the years, more I've been collecting pollen, and I've also been collecting Costa Rican. They've all been compared to the one that was talked back to Harvard, but nobody's actually compared them one-on-one with your time space on it, I guess—until I came along and was able to do that by chance.
So, these two frogs that look completely different—now when we see them together, they've been confused for over a hundred years. It's amazing that such a large animal, with all the science that's gone on in these areas, could be confused for so long.
It's kind of ironic that this species that I know so well and that shaped my career almost really, and it's known inside out all the time—this frog was a new species! I still can't get over it now, to be honest with you. It's just amazing that actually, the one everybody knows, the one in the books that I've been working with, I've been able to name as a new species.
As taxonomists, we actually have to baptize; before you name a creature, this creature cannot be talked about because you don't know what it is. So, you need to know its precise scientific name. When you know it, you can talk about this species, and you can present it to wider audiences. You can talk about conservation, you can talk about habitat preferences, you can study its biology when you know the name.
Naming something as a new species is something that is a physiologist's dream, really. This project just meant so much to me. My granddaughter means so much to me—my first granddaughter. It just felt right that it was to be named after her so that, you know, when I disappear, she'll still have that. She'll have that for life.
You know, she'll be able to be proud that she has a frog named after her, and it's a beautiful frog. Separating these two out has meant that the original species—the one that was collected in 1902, over a hundred years ago—is actually a lot rarer than we ever thought.
What was thought to be a species that had an occurrence all the way from Ecuador right the way through to Honduras has suddenly had this distribution cut. This frog is extremely rare; there's less than 50 that have ever been seen. So, reviews are required now to assess the requirements for these species.
It needs to be protected, given the current extinction crisis, especially among amphibians. We have had no idea how much we're actually losing at the moment. So, being able to identify all these species gives us an actual chance. If we have to save them, you know, if you don't know what you're losing, how are you ever going to conserve it?
What's all this stuff for? What are all of our collections for? They're for understanding; they're for learning. They're for us to really inform how we want to be in the world and what actions we want to undertake to care for the environments in which we live.
For me, this story absolutely brings all of those together. Most people think we know that preserved specimens are locked in the cabinet, and that's it. But these specimens are just crucial for the future—for understanding the biodiversity that we have around us today.
We kind of owe it to the people that collected those specimens a hundred years ago to preserve these specimens for the future and make the most of them—make them relevant to what we're trying to do today. [Music]