PHOTOS: Coin-Size Frog Found -- One of World's Smallest

As the smallest known frog species in the world's second largest mountain range, this new amphibian is easy to miss.

But scientists searching the Andes mountains' upper Cosnipata Valley in southern Peru, near Cusco, spotted the coin-size creature--a member of the Noblella genus--in the leaf litter of a cloud forest between 9,925 and 10,466 feet (3,025 and 3,190 meters).

(See pictures of other new frogs and amphibians found recently in South America.)

"The most distinctive character of the new species," scientists write in the February issue of the journal Copeia, "is its diminutive size." Females grow to 0.49 inch (12.4 millimeters) at most. Males make it to only 0.44 inch (11.1 millimeters).

What's most surprising is that the frog lives at such high elevations, said study co-author Alessandro Catenazzi, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. In general, larger animals are found at greater heights.
A new species of frog in the Noblella genus grasps her two eggs, which she will watch over and keep moist until they hatch into froglets, a February 2009 study says.

The smallest frog in South America's Andes region and one of the smallest frogs in the world, the newfound amphibian has some unusual traits. For instance, females hatch only two eggs--a small number for a frog--and each egg is nearly a third the size of the adult.

The tiny amphibian is also rarescientists estimate there are between 30 and 75 frogs in each hectare (2.5 acres) of their highland habitat, which is located in a transition zone between forests and grasslands.


In Peru's southern mountain scrublands, field assistant Eduardo Luna holds a new species of frog in the Noblella genus, first documented in a February 2009 study.

The smallest frog yet found in the Andes, the critter was discovered during a research study of the deadly chytrid fungus, which has killed frogs and salamanders around the world in recent years, said study co-author Alessandro Catenazzi, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley.

Although the deadly fungal infection has been recorded in southern Peru, no infections were detected in the new frog species.

That's because chytrid usually strikes frogs that rely on water for their reproductive cycle, Catenazzi said.

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