…To be brief and to the point: I got my hands on April 2018’s
issue of NG; a ‘special issue’, related to race – the human race in general and
the various human races (‘colors’? Sorry, if this is the wrong word, but
somehow it sounds so appropriate) as well. And?
It is a masterfully done piece of everything, doing its best
to be politically correct, factually accurate, repentant of the past deeds and
etc. And yet there is a pinch of tar in that jar of honey, and it concerns a
frog.
The frog is this month’s endangered animal, featured in NG.
It is named ‘Boulanger’s Tree Frog’, and I decided to look it up. The search
engines produced nine major frog
species that have the name, and one species of tree-dwelling lizards that is
also associated with Boulanger – and yet none were a perfect fit to NG’s frog,
(to say nothing of the lizard).
So, I looked up its’ Latin, scientific name – Rhacophorus lateralis – and this time I
found the mysterious amphibian: it is known
as Boulanger’s Tree Frog, but also as the small tree frog, and also – as the
winged gliding frog. In other words, this frog doesn’t fly as birds, bats and
insects do, but it, and the rest of its’ family, has evolved the webbing
between its’ fingers into a parachute of some sort. Since the Boulanger’s Tree
Frog in NG is a part of this family, it must be able to glide as well. But…
But none of this was mentioned, the focus here was on the
amazing rediscovery of the frog, which fit with the determinedly cautiously
optimistic tone of the NG issue. Between that tone and the way this frog got
handled by NG – well, how its’ facts got handled – I am treating this NG issue
with a grain of salt now. This is all.
Good luck to everyone, and see you all soon!
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