Speck of a fish with short life named world's tiniest vertebrate

By Rob Stein
The Washington Post

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Only six specimens of the fish have been found, exclusively from around Australia's Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea. The largest is the only female, which measures about one-third of an inch in length, no longer than the width of a pencil, said H.J. Walker Jr. of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and William Watson of the National Marine Fisheries Service, both in La Jolla, Calif.

If 500,000 of these fish were weighed together, they would add up to no more than 1 pound, they reported last week in the Records of the Australian Museum.

The fish, which replaces the dwarf goby as the world's smallest vertebrate, are transparent except for their eyes. They have no teeth, scales or other characteristics typical of other fishes. They also have a life span to match their size: about two months.

"It is interesting that these animals experience several generations each year," Watson said. "This suggests that they could evolve very quickly, as well."

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