Silverstoneia minutissima

Silverstoneia minutissima is a frog.  It lives in  Colombia, in Chocó and other places, for example Alto del Buey, Río Atrato, and Río San Juan.

Body
The adult male frog is 13.3 - 16.2 mm long from nose to rear end and the adult female frog is 14.5 - 17.0  mm long.  The skin of the frog's sides is dark brown in color with a green sideways stripe from the eye to where the legs meet the body. The belly is green-white in color. There are orange spots on the tops of the back legs.

Home
This frog lives in rainforests.  People have seen it in the dead leaves on the ground. People have seen this frog between 60 and 700 meters above sea level. Scientists think this frog moves around during the day and sleeps at night, like other frogs in Silverstoneia.

Name
Scientists named this frog minutissima because that is Latin for "very very small." This is the smallest frog in Silverstoneia, even smaller than Silverstoneia minima. Minima means "very small."

Young
Scientists think the female frog lays eggs in dead leaves on the ground and that, after the eggs hatch, the adult frogs carry the tadpoles streams. The scientists think this because that is what other frogs in Silverstoneia do. They have not seen Silverstoneia minutissima frogs lay eggs or move tadpoles.

Danger
Scientists are not sure whether this frog will die out soon because it is hard to visit the forest where the frog lives. People cut down the forest where the frog lives to get wood to build with. People also dig gold out of the ground nearby.  This puts bad chemicals into the water. 

This frog lives near a protected park, Parque Nacional Utría, but scientists don't know if it lives in the park.

First paper

References

Category:Frogs of South America