Air Date: Week of September 27, 2024

The Brazilian flea toad (Brachycephalus pulex) averages mere millimeters in length. (Photo: Person Who Took Photo, Person’s Organization If Applicable, Website Where You Got Photo, CC Copyright info)

The Brazilian flea toad is only about a quarter of an inch long, making it the smallest vertebrate known to Western science. Its feet are so small that they have just two toes as opposed to the usual five on larger frogs and toads, Living on Earth’s Don Lyman reports in this note on emerging science.

Transcript

O’NEILL: Coming up, AI’s growing hunger for energy and water. But first this note on emerging science from Don Lyman.

[SCIENCE NOTE THEME]

LYMAN: In a scientific paper published early this year, herpetologist Mirco Sole and his colleagues at State University of Santa Cruz in Brazil, described what they say is the world’s smallest know amphibian and the smallest known vertebrate – Brachycephalus pulex, aka the Brazilian flea toad.

The males of the tiny amphibians averaged 7.1 mm long, or slightly over a quarter of an inch, while the females averaged 8.15 mm in length. The smallest male flea toad was just 6.45 mm long. These miniscule creatures could sit comfortably on a dime, which is 17.91 mm in diameter.

The Brazilian flea toad has nabbed the title of world’s smallest known amphibian and smallest known vertebrate. At just 7 millimeters long on average, the frogs are a fraction the size of a 27-millimeter-wide $1 Brazilian real coin.https://t.co/KBIEiPEIcd

— Science News (@ScienceNews) March 3, 2024

The scientists said being so small does affect the body structure of the flea toad. For example, their tiny feet have just two toes, as opposed to the usual five toes on the feet of larger frog and toad species.

Solé said there may be even smaller vertebrates that have yet to be discovered, but any that are less than about six millimeters long “would really challenge morphology and physics, but who knows.”

With the shortest known science note, I’m Don Lyman.

 

Links

Smithsonian Magazine | “The World’s Smallest Vertebrate Is a Tiny Brazilian Frog, Study Finds”