Madagascar. The final frog-tier.
That joke only makes sense when one hears the news that scientists have found seven new tree frog species in Madagascar, and all of them are named after iconic Star Trek captains, as noted in a recent study.
The findings of this study were published in the peer-reviewed academic journal Vertebrate Zoology.
The reason for the Star Trek comparisons was that, according to the scientists behind the study, the frogs - rather than croaking - make high-pitched whistles that sound like sounds heard in Star Trek, such as the boatswain whistle often heard on the starships or the tricorders used by Starfleet personnel for carrying out scientific scans.
These whistles aren’t just incidental, but are actually part of what makes this discovery so significant in the first place.
Madagascar is a huge island around the size of France, and it boasts around 9% of the entire world’s frog population.
Treefrogs from the Boophis genus are among the frogs. Treefrogs in general tend to look rather similar to one another, and it can be difficult for scientists to spot new species among them.
Singling out the species
But seven new species were singled out among the many frogs hopping around Madagascar thanks to their sounds.
While most frogs typically make croaking sounds, these seven frogs make high-pitched whistles. This, the researchers noted, is what is known as an “advertisement call,” named as such because the frogs are theorized to be sharing information about themselves to potential mates.
One possible reason for this is their habitat. Living among the streams of water in the mountainous areas of Madagascar, high-pitched whistles may be more audible than croaks.
That isn’t enough to determine if the frogs are new species. As such, the researchers backed their findings with DNA analysis.
What they found was that genetically, there was enough information to conclude that the frogs were indeed separate species.
What names were the new species given?
There were eight new species in all, but only seven were named, given the scientific designations of B. kirki, B. picardi, B. siskoi, B. janewayae, B. archeri, B. pikei, and B. burnhamae.
Those names may not mean anything to the layperson, but diehard fans will recognize them as being references to some of the most famous characters in science fiction. Captain James T. Kirk from Star Trek: The Original Series and its associated movies; Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Picard, as well as several movies; Captain Benjamin Sisko from Star Trek: Deep Space 9; Captain Katheryn Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager; Captain Jonathan Archer from Star Trek: Enterprise; Captain Christopher Pike from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; and Captain Michael Burnham from Star Trek: Discovery.
This is not the first time a new scientific discovery has been made and named after Star Trek, which itself is unsurprising given how long Star Trek has been running and how much it influenced generations of scientists raised on the adventures of the crews of the USS Enterprise, Deep Space 9, and Voyager.
For example, in 2022, scientists discovered microorganisms that consume methane, which were named the Borg, after the Star Trek race of the same name. But while that naming choice was appropriate due to the function they served – the Borg aliens assimilated things into their collective just as the real-life Borg absorbed and contained methane – these paragons of space exploration and scientific discovery don’t seem at first to have anything to do with some frogs found in Madagascar.
But aside from the high-pitched whistles, there is one other thing the frogs have in common with Star Trek characters, and that’s the word “trek.” This is because, due to the remote locations where these frogs live, scientists had to do quite a bit of trekking to find them.
But while we might not be getting any frog-themed Star Trek theories anytime soon, the same spirit of adventure and scientific progress will be pushing the researchers behind this study further as they explore the final frog-tier.
Their ongoing mission: To seek out new frogs. To boldly go where no scientist has gone before.