''Schindleria brevipinguis'' is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of marine

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

Gobiidae Gobiidae or gobies is a family of bony fish in the order Gobiiformes, one of the largest fish families comprising more than 2,000 species in more than 200 genera. Most of gobiid fish are relatively small, typically less than in length, and the ...

Perciformes Perciformes (), also called the Percomorpha or Acanthopteri, is an order or superorder of ray-finned fish. If considered a single order, they are the most numerous order of vertebrates, containing about 41% of all bony fish. Perciformes means ...

. Known as the stout infantfish, it is native to Australia's

Great Barrier Reef The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over over an area of approximately . The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, ...

and to

Osprey Reef Osprey Reef is a submerged atoll in the Coral Sea, northeast of Queensland, Australia. It is part of the Northwestern Group of the Coral Sea Islands. Osprey Reef is roughly oval in shape, measuring , and covers around . It has a perimeter of ...

in the

Coral Sea The Coral Sea () is a marginal sea of the South Pacific off the northeast coast of Australia, and classified as an interim Australian bioregion. The Coral Sea extends down the Australian northeast coast. Most of it is protected by the Fre ...

Anatomy

''S. brevipinguis'' is among the smallest known fish in the world, together with species such as ''

Paedocypris progenetica ''Paedocypris progenetica'' is a species of tiny cyprinid fish endemic to the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Bintan where it is found in peat swamps and blackwater streams. It was discovered by Singaporean ichthyologist Heok Hui Tan. He ha ...

''. Males of ''S. brevipinguis'' have an average

standard length Fish measurement is the measuring of individual fish and various parts of their anatomies. These data are used in many areas of ichthyology, including taxonomy and fisheries biology. Overall length * Standard length (SL) is the length of a fish m ...

of , a gravid female was and the maximum standard length of the species is . 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 ''Paedophryne amauensis'' is a species of microhylid frog endemic to eastern Papua New Guinea. At in snout-to-vent length, it is considered the world's smallest known vertebrate. (See also Ecological guild.) The species was listed in the '' ...

'', while the parasitic males of the

anglerfish The anglerfish are fish of the teleost order Lophiiformes (). They are bony fish named for their characteristic mode of predation, in which a modified luminescent fin ray (the esca or illicium) acts as a lure for other fish. The luminescence ...

Photocorynus spiniceps ''Photocorynus spiniceps'' is a species of anglerfish in the family Linophrynidae. It is in the monotypic genus ''Photocorynus''. The known mature male individuals are 6.2–7.3 millimeters (0.25-0.3 inches), smaller than any other m ...

'' are but 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.

Taxonomy

The specific epithet, ''brevipinguis,'' derives from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''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).

References

* McGrouther, M., J. Leis, T. Trnski.
Stout Infantfish, ''Schindleria brevipinguis''
. ''Fishes: Australian Museum Fish Site.'' July 2004.
Picture of Stout Infantfish

External links

Some records in the fish world
{{Taxonbar, from=Q137998 Schindleriidae Gobiidae Fish described in 2004