Schindleria brevipinguis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Schindleria brevipinguis is a species of marine fish in family Schindleriidae of Perciformes. Known as the stout infantfish, it is native to Australia's Great Barrier Reef and to Osprey Reef in the Coral Sea.

S. brevipinguis is the second smallest known fish and vertebrate. The species grows to a maximum total length of 8.4 mm (about one-third inch), with males being mature at a length of 7 mm (just over one-quarter inch); the smallest vertebrate species currently is the recently (Jan. 2006) identified Paedocypris progenetica, while the parasitic males of the anglerfish Photocorynus spiniceps are but 6.2 mm "long". S. brevipinguis is distinguished from the similar S. praematura by having its first anal-fin ray further forward, under dorsal-fin 4, rather than 7???11 in S. praematura.

The specific epithet, brevipinguis, derives from the Latin brevis (short) and pinguis (stout), in reference to the fish's shorter, thicker body, as compared with other Schindleria species.

The first specimen was collected by Jeff Leis in 1979, but the species was not formally described until a 2004 paper (Watson and Walker).

The discovery of S. brevipinguis relegated to second place the previous smallest known vertebrate, Trimmatom nanus, a dwarf goby of the western Indian Ocean.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schindleria_brevipinguis

The text in this page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article shown in above URL. It is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.