Zoologica Scripta News Today

Brazilian flea toads are neither a flea nor a toad, but they are almost flea-sized. The frogs are small enough to fit on a pinkie fingernail.

The Brazilian flea toad stands out with its bright yellow-orange color, which scientists believe is a warning signal to predators

Smaller than a pea, flea toads are so teensy they approach the limits of how small a backboned animal can be.

Scientists said the flea toad can be crowned as the tiniest after researchers successfully measured 46 total specimens found in southern Bahia, Brazil

Male Brachycephalus pulex frogs are so small that two of them can sit side by side on a pinky nail

After it passed his challenge, will atheist evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins now embrace the theory of intelligent design?

The previous article - part of my now lengthy series on gekkotan squamates (see links below) - provided an introduction to the neat and fascinating near-limbless Australasian gekkotans known as the pygopodids. Disclaimer: the group being discussed here is 'Pygopodidae of tradition', not Pygopodidae as currently formulated. More on this matter later.

As you may know, Tet Zoo has been going for four years now. Despite this, there are still entire tetrapod clades - consisting of hundreds or even thousands of species - that have scarcely been mentioned here, if at all.

In terms of its zoological diversity, Europe is the best known continent on the planet. Indeed it's generally assumed that just about all of Europe's macrofauna has, by now, been discovered. While that's mostly true, it seems that at least a few species - so called 'cryptic species' - have been missed, mostly because they're extremely similar to their close relatives.