Enough of the big talk, the little guys out there are already making it big. The scientific community has recently been stirred by yet another discovery of a new specie. This time, the animal discovered belongs to the distinction of being called one of the world's smallest land vertebrate.

The vertebrate was discovered in India. Delhi University Systematics Biologist S D Biju and his colleagues discovered a 10-millimeter frog in the Western Ghats of Kerala in India. The frog named Nyctibatrachus minimus joins history books by becoming identified as the smallest of all known Indian land vertebrates.

Found under leaf litters and among the roots of ferns, the tiny frog makes the humid rainforests of the Western Ghats of Kerala as its home. The adult male usually grows to about or less than 10mm in length and the frogs can only be seen during nighttime.

The size of Nyctibatrachus minimus is really small but it did almost upstaged another tiny frog. This time, the frog is found in the Southern Hemisphere and is the smallest one in the area. Called the Gold Frog or Brazilian Psyllophryne Didactyla, an adult would grow to only 9.8 mm long.

Despite their size, these tiny frogs are very useful for scientists who study changes in the environment. Dramatic changes in the frog's population and behavior are good indicators that the environment or the climate is changing or becoming more unsuitable.

However, these frogs may be the smallest vertebrates on land, but they are not the smallest in the world. That title belongs to the fishies.

In 2006, fish anatomy expert Dr. Ralf Britz published a paper indicating that a fish specie called Paedocypris progenetica as the world's smallest at 7.9mm. Belonging to the carp family, the Progenetica was found to have females growing 5.3 to 10.3 mm long. The fish was caught in a fine-mesh and lives underneath the trees bordering a flooded forest area on the island of Sumatra in Indonesian.

A few years back, the Records of the Australian Museum described a miniature fish specie that merely measured from 7mm to a maximum growth length of 8.4mm. The fish was the stout infantfish or Schindleria brevipinguis. It is native to Australia's Great Barrier Reef and to Osprey Reef in the Coral Sea.

Also small is the Photocorynus spiniceps which is a kind of anglerfish. Although, there are mature males that grow only 6.2-7.3 mm, the females can grow as large as 50.5 mm.

Going back to land animals, other species that join the distinguished list of the world's smallest vertebrate include the 16 mm Jaragua lizard which was is native to the forest covered islands of the Dominican Republic. Another small lizard is the Brookesia, a kind of chameleon found in Madagascar, unique to Mount Mulanje of Malawi. This one is a little big compared to the others mentioned above but still at around 1-1.5 cm long, the lizard can still fit on your finger tips.