WHEN YOU
LOOK
Western Bluebird
The Frogfish
when you look at the frogfish, you see nature's independence
The frogfish or the Antennariidae are a part of the Lophiiformes with 14 genera divided into two families Antennariinae and Histiophyninae. Some of their distinctive features include their overall ability to resemble environmental objects, their ability to remain out of water for extended periods of time, and their form of locomotion that almost resembles walking. They are called frogfish because they were originally classified with true frogs as amphibians in 1734. Since then, it has been a long time coming to being truly understood and classified within science. Their first real study was in 1798 with the first monograph in 1960. Despite this, it took until 1980 for the genera to be revisited, of which there are 28 nominal genera and subgenera that include over 150 species. To this day, it is still not understood how these different genera are related through evolution and much is still not understood. All of their history gives a sense of unfinished work. It is a species that has never been focused on; indeed, it seems as though the true nature of this species will never be fully known or explored.
When I first googled the frogfish and as I continued the research even onto research databases, there were two things in common. One was a common author and the other was the amount of material describing either new species of frogfish, new places that frogfish were found, or changes in the way that frogfish were viewed. It all conveyed a sense of newness. Newness both in what was being published and what was being discovered. Most research has been published since the '90s. This was the main thing that got me thinking about how science is just trying to catch up on what is known about the frogfish. It has existed for years and evolved over time. Yet it does not view itself as a specific species or the different genera; it merely just exists. These studies and information published are only things made for humans to understand it.
This lesson that I learned when researching the frogfish is useful when digesting any scientific material but particularly when it comes to climate, as they both share the superficial similarity of all of the information being relatively new. Despite the relative newness of the understanding of how the climate is changing, the Earth has been going through this process since fossil fuels were first used. Regardless of our understanding, the climate continues to change it all its complexity. Though many view science as the ultimate truth of the universe, it only exists to create understanding within human society. Everything we consume about the climate and the frogfish has already been filtered through people and our societies. Regardless of what we say about it, the climate crisis will continue. What we say and view about the climate crisis only affects what we will do about it.