"Above a clear, rocky stream, a tiny green tree frog perches on the belly of a
leaf. Turning its minute snout toward the water, the frog lets out three chirps
in the dark, struggling to make itself known. The act of naming is never a
discovery, but a description of what always was there, a sound connected to a
thought in time. The heart within the translucent chest of the tiny frog by the
stream beats with blood dating back 300 million years, long before the first
utterance of human language. And until recently, it survived, like 86 percent of
terrestrial life, without a scientific name, unable to break through what
taxonomists refer to as the Linnean shortfall."
Science writer Natalie Middleton shares more.
