A new species chameleon discovered in Madagascar, A new species of chameleon discovered in Madagascar, Brookesia nana, was featured in Scientific Reports as a new competitor to be the world’s smallest reptile.
With a body size of an adult male of 13.5 mm, the males of Brookeisa nana are the reptiles smaller adults of any sex, a spectacular case of extreme miniaturization.
Nine years ago, some new species of Brookesia from northern Madagascar, the smallest of which, B. micra, was only 16 mm in body size (measured from snout to vent). This made it one of the smallest amniotes (vertebrates with an amnion in the egg, that is to say, reptiles Y mammals, no fishes Y amphibians) in the world, competing with some species of gecko sphaerodactylid of the Caribe, mainly Sphaerodactylus ariasae 16mm in body size. Brookeisa nana has beaten these marks by more than 2 millimeters.
On the other hand, a female of Brookesia nana measured 19.2 mm, which is larger than the females from especie Sphaerodactylus competitor. So while the adult males of the new species may be the adult amniotes smaller, adult females are not, explains the doctor on his blog Mark D. joke, German herpetologist and evolutionary biologist.
Brookesia nana is in the tropical forests waning mountains of Sorata in the north of Madagascar. These forests are quite well connected (at the moment) with others in the north of Madagascar, so this little new chameleon violates the pattern of smaller species found on small islands. That suggests something else is allowing / causing these chameleons se miniaturicen.
Despite its small size, the male holotype from B. nana has quite large genitalia. “This led us to look at the relationship between genitalia and body size in chameleons, which revealed an interesting pattern: smaller species often have the genital sizes proportionally larger. We believe this could also be related to the dimorphism size: if the female is still larger than the male, a restriction is placed on reduction of the size male genital“, explica joke.
This discovery helps shed a little more light on some of the physical limitations imposed on vertebrates that are reproduce sexually when they explore the minimal extreme size spectrum corporal. Similar limitations are known related to coupling of the genitals of spiders. “What I find particularly interesting is that this type of restriction does not exist in animals miniaturized that have no organs reproducers intrusive, such as frogs, where the fertilization it is almost always external, “he added.
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