London - At half the size of a Smartie, maybe it’s not that surprising that this tiny frog hasn’t been spotted before.
Dwarfed by a US dime, this black and red speckled creature has been declared the world’s smallest frog after scientists discovered it sitting on a leaf in Papua New Guinea.
At just 7.7mm, it is also the smallest of the world’s 60,000 vertebrates - creatures with a backbone. The largest is the blue whale at 26 metres.
Professor Chris Austin, of Louisiana State University, told the journal PLoS One that the frog, named paedophryne amanuensis, is thought to have evolved “extreme miniaturisation” to fill a gap in the food chain, possibly to eat minuscule creatures such as mites which would not sustain larger frogs. - Daily Mail