The Lilliputian Frog
The Lilliputian frog, known in biologist-ese as the Noblella, got its name for being super teeny tiny. This guy is only 0.4 inches (1 centimeter) long, which is half the width of a penny. They may be the smallest amphibians in the Andes, and among the smallest in the world. No wonder they’d never been seen by scientists before! In fact, Trond’s team almost missed them.
“We heard many of them calling in the forest, but as soon as we got close to them, they would stop calling and would then be virtually impossible to find due to their tiny size and camouflage,” Trond said in an email.
Since these little guys tend to reside in tunnels beneath the thick layers of moss and rich soil of the Zongo cloud forest in Bolivia, they weren’t even easy to find by tracking their chirpy calls. But the scientists found them. And thank god, because just look at this frog.
