Brazilian Flea Toad: Could this tiny frog be the world's smallest vertebrate?
- Published
- comments
The tiny frog is barely big enough to cover a quarter of this coin
Scientists think they might have found the world's smallest animal with a backbone - and it's a tiny frog.
The Brazilian Flea Toad (which confusingly is a frog, and not a toad) is about 7 millimetres (0.3 inches) long.
These teeny frogs live in a warm environment in Bahia, in Brazil.
When it was first found in 2011 scientists suspected it could be the world's smallest vertebrate, meaning any animal that has a backbone - and new search suggests they could be right.
Brazil is home to all sorts of funky frog species, including these Ornate Horned Frogs
How do we know it's the smallest?
When the species was discovered, it was so tiny that scientists presumed it was the smallest. However, not enough frogs were looked at to work out what their average size might be.
Scientists were also unsure whether they had looked at enough adults - which would be fully grown frogs.
A team of researchers at the State University of Santa Cruz got to work, lead by Mirco Solé. They measured several Brazilian Flea Toads and worked out which were male and which were female, and of those, which were adults.
The average male measured about 7mm long, which is smaller than the Paedophryne amauensis. This frog from Southeast Asia with a slightly less catchy-name was previously the "smallest" vertebrate officially recorded.
A vertebrate is any animal that has a backbone in its body.
Humans are vertebrates, as are frogs, cats, fish, birds, and many more.
An animal without a backbone is known as an invertebrate.