Schindleria brevipinguis facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Schindleria brevipinguis |
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Schindleria brevipinguis is a tiny species of fish that lives in the ocean. It's often called the stout infantfish because it's very small and a bit thicker than other fish in its family. You can find this amazing little fish near Australia's Great Barrier Reef and at Osprey Reef in the Coral Sea.
How Small Is This Fish?
The stout infantfish is one of the smallest fish known in the world. It's so tiny that it's hard to believe!
- Male stout infantfish are usually about 7.7 millimeters (mm) long. That's less than half an inch!
- A pregnant female fish was found to be 8.4 mm long.
- The biggest stout infantfish ever found was only 10 mm long. This is about the size of a grain of rice.
For a while, Schindleria brevipinguis held the record for the smallest vertebrate (animals with a backbone). But now, an even smaller frog called Paedophryne amauensis holds that title. Also, some male anglerfish are even smaller, at just 6.2 mm.
The stout infantfish is also very light. One fish weighed only 0.7 milligrams. That's less than a single grain of sand! It's also very thin, like most of its close relatives.
How It Got Its Name
The scientific name, brevipinguis, tells us something special about this fish. It comes from two Latin words:
- brevis means "short."
- pinguis means "stout" or "thick."
So, brevipinguis means "short and stout." This name was chosen because this fish has a shorter, thicker body compared to other fish in the Schindleria family.
The first time someone collected a specimen of this fish was in 1979. This was done by a scientist named Jeff Leis. However, scientists didn't officially describe and name the species until 2004. That's when two scientists, Watson and Walker, wrote a paper about it.
See also
- Smallest organisms
