New species of tiny frog is world’s smallest vertebrate

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Researchers have found two new frog species in New Guinea, one of which is the new smallest known vertebrate on Earth. The new smallest vertebrate species is called Paedophryne amauensis, named after Amau Village in Papua New Guinea, where it was found. The adult body size for these frogs ranges from just 7.0 to 8.0 millimeters. The previous smallest vertebrate was a fish, called Paedocypris progenetica, with an adult size of 7.9 to 10.3 millimeters.


Rittmeyer EN, Allison A, Gruundler MC, Thompson DK, Austin CC (2012) Ecological Guild Evolution and the Discovery of the World’s Smallest Vertebrate. PLoS ONE 7(1): e29797. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0029797
Living vertebrates vary drastically in body size, yet few taxa reach the extremely minute size of some frogs and teleost fish. Here we describe two new species of diminutive terrestrial frogs from the megadiverse hotspot island of New Guinea, one of which represents the smallest known vertebrate species, attaining an average body size of only 7.7 mm. Both new species are members of the recently described genus Paedophryne, the four species of which are all among the ten smallest known frog species, making Paedophryne the most diminutive genus of anurans. This discovery highlights intriguing ecological similarities among the numerous independent origins of diminutive anurans, suggesting that minute frogs are not mere oddities, but represent a previously unrecognized ecological guild.






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[Affordable Exotics]

I want a pair of those :-D

[asid61]

I could keep a pair in a pickle jar and it would be pretty roomy.
They will eventually make their way into the trade, maybe in 5-10 years.

[Reddragonwebhosting]

are they obtainable? i mean yea everything is obtainable but legally? can we own a pair of these?

[redfrogger]

Very cool looking!! Thanks for sharing

[boabab95]

Why must they be owned? Not only would these be extremely hard to find, there are plenty of small frogs that are already in the hobby that are extremely underrated and deserve to be kept and bred in order to remain in the hobby...Why not try to protect whats already here instead of wanting the "next big thing"? [or in this case, "next small thing"?]

[djone2]

Originally Posted by boabab95

Why must they be owned? Not only would these be extremely hard to find, there are plenty of small frogs that are already in the hobby that are extremely underrated and deserve to be kept and bred in order to remain in the hobby...Why not try to protect whats already here instead of wanting the "next big thing"? [or in this case, "next small thing"?]

Well, how exactly do you think all the dart frogs you own got into the hobby? Did they magically just appear in a vivarium one day and started breeding? Nope, you have them because at one point, someone said: "I like this little critter, I am going to take him out of the wild and put him in a box." Unless they are endangered, it would be hypocritical of us to say "these shouldn't be owned."

[boabab95]

Originally Posted by djone2

Well, how exactly do you think all the dart frogs you own got into the hobby? Did they magically just appear in a vivarium one day and started breeding? Nope, you have them because at one point, someone said: "I like this little critter, I am going to take him out of the wild and put him in a box." Unless they are endangered, it would be hypocritical of us to say "these shouldn't be owned."

Im not saying we shouldnt own them [well...] i was saying that there are so many small under-appreciated frogs ALREADY in the hobby, why not keep whats already here? There have been a few cases [anthonyi locales being some of them] where that "cool little frog" that everybody wanted ended up dissapearing from the hobby because they were just "little brown frogs" i would hate to see that happen with not only these, but those already available.

[Dizzle21]

Originally Posted by djone2

Well, how exactly do you think all the dart frogs you own got into the hobby? Did they magically just appear in a vivarium one day and started breeding? Nope, you have them because at one point, someone said: "I like this little critter, I am going to take him out of the wild and put him in a box." Unless they are endangered, it would be hypocritical of us to say "these shouldn't be owned."

Kinda like highland sirensis? There not even close to stabilized in the US hobby yet they are disappearing from the wild.

[Reef_Haven]

I could get you a couple of these.
My kids call them booger frogs!