The smallest frog in the world

The smallest frog in the world

Paedophryne amauensis is the smallest known vertebrate in January 2012. It's a frog atrophied, 7 mm, which was discovered at 177 m altitude in Amau, Papua New Guinea by Eric Rittmeyer and colleagues in their research. The team of scientists has been able to recover than males, it is quite possible that females are larger, as in a number of animal species.
With a size so small, we can easily imagine the difficulty of detecting them in the topsoil of its ecosystem. Fortunately for researchers and unfortunately for it, it is not discreet as it announces its presence by shouting, mostly at dusk and dawn. During these two periods of the day, it launched a long series of shrill cries, one per second, which can last several minutes. Its call is a shrill noise emitted at the frequency of 8400-9400 Hz.

Image: Paedophryne amauensis is the smallest frog known. This frog from Papua New Guinea, does not go through the metamorphosis of the tadpole, but comes to life, directly in the form of small vertebrate amphibian, ie, fully formed adult. This amphibian is able to make leaps of surprising length, relative to its size (30 times the length of his body). This sort of mini frog was discovered for the first time in August 2009 by Christopher Austin, herpetologist, and Eric Rittmeyer, during an expedition to explore the biodiversity of the rainforest of Papua New Guinea.

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea, with its 462 840 square kilometers, occupies most of the eastern half of the island of New Guinea (786 000 square kilometers), the other half, the West New Guinea, is Indonesia. Papua New Guinea, whose capital is Port Moresby, is located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, north of Australia, and west of the Solomon Islands. New Guinea is the name given in the sixteenth century by a Spanish explorer, because of the resemblance of the inhabitants, the population of Equatorial Guinea in Africa. Some islands, belongs to him: New Ireland, New Britain, Bougainville Island...
Below the equator, Papua New Guinea is mostly mountainous, it is covered with tropical forests that receive heavy rainfall and high temperatures in the region of the world.

New Guinea as a whole is considered the richest region of the planet's biodiversity. It is home to a flora and fauna, some endangered, extremely rich and varied.

Image: New Guinea is a large island, 5 ° below the equator, north of Australia, who bathes in the waters of the Pacific, surrounded by the Arafura Sea, Banda Sea, the Bismarck Sea, the Solomon sea, the Coral Sea. New Guinea is extremely mountainous, Mount Wilhelm is the culmination of Papua New Guinea (4509 m). Its small population, allows the preservation of species biodiversity. Indeed, no species has yet gone and some are threatened.