Exploring the Intriguing World of the Smallest Animals on Earth

1. Wolfi . Octopus

Thought it was an octopus, it must be so huge that it could eat a whale, drown a ship like in the movies, but the Wolfi octopus was dubbed the smallest in the world. This species was discovered in 1913 after many years of searching in the Indo-Pacific waters. An adult weighs only 1 gram and is about 1.5 cm long which means it can comfortably grip the tip of your finger.

2. Brookesia Micra . Gecko

The tiny species of gecko, Brookesia Micra, was discovered in Madagascar in 2012. They spend most of their time living under fallen leaves, making research difficult. When the sun goes down, this gecko will climb up the tree trunk to sleep – they have been found this way. Holding the record as one of the four smallest lizards, Brookesia Micra is only 29mm long, small enough to stand on top of a matchstick.

3. Seahorse Hippocampus Denise

Living at depths of 13 – 90 meters in the western Pacific Ocean, the Hippocampus Denise seahorse was initially confused with the baby seahorse. In fact, the largest one is only 16mm long. In addition to their small size, they are difficult to detect because they often hide in large coral reefs. This difficulty is the only obstacle to determining the number of the species to have conservation solutions when marine pollution and indiscriminate fishing like today.

4. Speckled Padloper Turtle

The adults are also only 11cm but large enough for a Speckled Padloper tortoises to bully their fellows over food. Compared to the general size of turtles, the spotted tortoise is 16 times smaller than the Galaparos tortoise, so to imagine you can multiply your height by 16 times. The speckled shell works very well in camouflage from all enemies and also because of its weakness, the spotted turtle often hides in the rocks. Maintaining the breed is also difficult, because each female’s body can only accommodate one egg at a time. This has resulted in them being threatened with extinction due to hunting, predators and habitat loss.

5. Sugar Glider Flying Squirrel

The Sugar Glider marsupial is being kept by many Vietnamese as a house pet. They are nocturnal arboreal squirrels native to Papua – New Guinea, Indonesia, the east coast of Australia. Adult flying squirrels are 16 – 20cm long and possess a thin membrane extending from the middle of the arm to the end of the hind leg that gives them the ability to fly up to 60-100 meters in a few seconds. Newborn flying squirrels will automatically crawl into a small bag in front of their mother’s chest and suckle until they are stronger. Sugar squirrels are easy to tame and close to humans. When caring for them, people often feed sweet-tasting foods like the name Sugar such as flowers, nectar, pollen, tree buds, sap, leaves, seeds and insects.

6. Pygmy Marmoset

The pygmy monkey is the smallest member of the large primate family with its offspring at reproductive age only 12cm long, weighing 170 grams. Twin albino monkeys at Froso Zoo in Ostersund, Sweden are extremely cute and become famous all over the world. In the wild, pygmy monkeys live in the Amazon rainforest, South American countries with small groups of 5-6 children, including 1 male leader and 1 female specialized in reproduction. They communicate in a variety of ways, including sounds, chemicals secreted by glands in the chest, genitals, or gesture signals. Currently, pygmy monkeys are seriously threatened with habitat and wildlife trade.

7. Kitti . Pig-nosed Bat

The pig-nosed bat Craseonycteris thonglongyai is the smallest mammal known to man, known in some places as a wasp bat. Each individual bat is only about 30-40mm small (almost a coin) and weighs 2 grams. The reason they are called Kitty pig-nosed bats is because they have rather large ears, reddish-brown fur and a snub nose that resembles a pig’s nose. Each flock of bats has a number of 10 – 500 bats that go foraging several times a day, mainly insects. They do not use sonar like other bats. Since its discovery in 1970, the number of wasp bats has also decreased significantly and the habitat has been reduced in some areas of Thailand and around Myanmar.

8. Lemur Mouse or Gray Lemur

The Lemur mouse of Madagascar, scientifically known as Microcebus murinus, is also on the list of the world’s smallest primates with a size of 5.5-12cm (with a comb). They can rarely be seen in trees because they only dare to poke their faces out to feed at night. Looking shy, but sometimes male gray mouse lemurs still mercilessly eat females even though their favorite foods are still leaves, fruits and insects.

9. Pangolin Pink Fairy Armadillo

This pangolin has a hard shell that is completely separate from the body unlike the turtle. They usually live in dry grass plains or sandy beaches in central Argentina with a size of about 8-12cm. They spend 18-19 hours sleeping each day. And only wake up at night trying to get as much winter food as possible. The pangolin’s favorite foods are larvae, insects and invertebrates. When in danger, the hard outer shell has an effective effect of causing the enemy to give up and leave.

10. Leptotyphlops Carlae

It’s still not certain if this is the smallest snake in the world, but Leptotyphlops Carlae, only 10cm long, were discovered not long ago in the forests of Barbados. The body of the snake is covered with shiny scales with yellow stripes on both sides but not obvious. According to experts, snakes that were pushed to the end of the road without food had to switch to an ant diet, the larvae have gradually evolved to the smallest size like today. Professor Hedges’ discovery was once heavily criticized by the people of Barbados when he named the animal so familiar to them with his wife’s name. However, in terms of science, he was the first to discover and name this animal.