Schindleria brevipinguis

Schindleria brevipinguis is a species of marine fish in family Gobiidae of Perciformes. Known as the stout infantfish, it is native to Australia's Great Barrier Reef and to Osprey Reef in the Coral Sea.^[2]

Schindleria brevipinguis
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Gobiiformes
Family:	Gobiidae
Genus:	Schindleria
Species:	S. brevipinguis
Binomial name
Schindleria brevipinguis Watson & Walker, 2004

Anatomy

S. brevipinguis is among the smallest known fish in the world, together with species such as Paedocypris progenetica. Males of S. brevipinguis have an average standard length of 7.7 mm (0.30 in), a gravid female was 8.4 mm (0.33 in) and the maximum standard length of the species is 10 mm (0.39 in).^[3] It held the record for the smallest known vertebrate, but now, by a measurement of snout-to-vent length, the smallest vertebrate species currently is the recently (Jan 2012) described frog Paedophryne amauensis, while the parasitic males of the anglerfish Photocorynus spiniceps are but 6.2 millimetres (0.24 in) 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. Like most closely related fishes, the fish is very thin, and one specimen weighed just 0.7 milligrams.^[2]

Taxonomy

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).

See also

• Smallest organisms