A new species of frog has been discovered, and I’m just happy it has nothing to do with online japes and jibes about Trump, social justice, or an ancient Egyptian deity. But before you can say “Praise Kek,” please note:
Sometimes a frog is just a frog.
But this frog is special, living most of its life underground. It is purple. And though this is not stressed in the reports, it’s markedly gelatinous.
In an article entitled “New Purple Pig-Nose Frog Found in Remote Mountains,” Jason Bittel explains that the frog comes above ground only when it rains — which in the Western Ghats mountain range in India is during monsoon season.
Named after the discovers’ late colleague, Dr. Subramaniam Bhupathy, it is dubbed Bhupathy’s purple frog (Nasikabatrachus bhupathi). I have to tip my hat to them, so to speak, for the herpetologist’s first name seems more fitting for a submerged-in-earth amphibian: “Subramaniam purple frog” would almost qualify as a pun. And, as readers of these Common Sense squibs will confirm, I am not always so valiant in resisting the art of the pun.
But you don’t read these commentaries for science news.
So, a moral.
Around the world, amphibians are disturbingly under threat. As Alex Jones hyperbolizes, “they’re turning the frogs gay!” But be that as it may (or, more likely, may not), even under greater threat is political common sense.
Let’s hope it, too, will emerge with the coming monsoon.
In India? Your neighborhood? Kekistan?
Probably not in Washington, D.C. But it’s Friday, we can at least hope.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
