Wildlife

28 Oct 2022 01:12

The haragua lizard Sphaerodactylus ariasae, only 16 mm from nose to tail, is the smallest in the world. In fact, it is the smallest vertebrate animal that can reproduce on land.

The newly discovered lizard lives on Isla Beata, a small wooded island in the Caribbean Sea near the Dominican Republic. Researchers believe that this lizard lives only here.

"Our discovery shows that we still don't know everything about species on Earth, even in areas very close to the United States," says one of the scientists who discovered this lizard, Blair Hedges.

"The island of this tiny lizard is closer to Miami than Miami is to Puerto Rico, and we didn't even know about the existence of this species, although biologists have been studying this area for several hundred years."

Hedges says the habitat this species needs to survive is rapidly disappearing. "People are cutting down trees even in national parks, and if they remove the forest, these lizards and other species will disappear."..