What is the smallest frog in the world?
“A new frog discovered in Cuba by scientists funded by the National Science Foundation is the smallest in the Northern Hemisphere, and is tied for the world record with the smallest frog in the Southern Hemisphere…The one-centimeter-long frog also is the smallest of the tetrapods, a grouping that includes all animals with backbones except fishes…Scientists S. Blair Hedges of Penn State and his Cuban colleagues discovered the tiny orange-striped black frog living under leaf litter and among the roots of ferns in a humid rainforest on the western slope of Cuba’s Monte Iberia. Hedges and Cuban scientist Alberto Estrada gave the frog the scientific name Eleutherodactylus iberia. Those two words are more than three times longer than the frog itself.
Two frogs are the smallest frogs in the world. Eleutherodactylus iberia (no common name) from Cuba and the Gold Frog Psyllophryne didactyla from Brazil which measures only about 10 mm from the tip of the snout to the tail end. However, many small species of frogs are not known from many individuals and it is always possible that another only poorly known species might turn out to be the smallest. How many people would it take to discover the smallest person?
