What is the Smallest Frog?
The smallest frog in the Southern Hemisphere is the Gold Frog, or Brazilian Psyllophryne Didactyla.
Adult Gold Frogs measure grow to only 9.8 millimetres in body
length (with legs drawn in). That's about one centimeter or about 3/8 of an inch!
The image on the left is the Gold Frog, courtesy of The
Somewhat Amusing World of Frogs page (site now gone).
Equally small is the smallest frog in the Northern Hemisphere, only recently
discovered (1996) in Monte Iberia, Cuba. It doesn't have a common name yet, but its
scientific name is Eleutherodactylus iberia.
On the right is a picture of the Eleutherodactylus iberia frog, sitting on a cuban coin so you can see how teeny it is! Photo by M. Lammertink.
For more information about the newest found teeny frog, see: Biotic Surveys Program Uncovers Smallest Frog
Also very small are poison frogs. These can measure less than half
an inch (1 cm) long, even when they're fully grown.
This image courtesy of Philip
Greenspun and his
Costa Rica: a Web Travel Review feature.
Click on it to see it full sized.
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