One of the world's tiniest lizards has been discovered by keen-eyed researchers in Madagascar.

The miniature chameleon, Brookesia micra, reaches a maximum length of just 29mm.

German scientists also found a further three new species in the north of the island.

The lizards were limited to very small ranges and scientists are concerned they could be at risk from habitat disturbance.

The discovery is reported in the journal PLoS ONE.

The research team, led by Dr Frank Glaw from the Zoologische Staatssammlung in Munich, have a specialist knowledge of Madagascar's dwarf chameleons having described other species in the past.

They conducted fieldwork at night during the wet season in order to find the easily overlooked animals.

"They mostly live in the leaf litter in the day... But at night they climb up and then you can spot them," said Dr Glaw, explaining that the animals moved up into branches to sleep.

The scientists carefully scanned the most likely habitats with torches and headlamps to find roosting sites.

They found the smallest species on a remote limestone islet and believe it may represent an extreme case of island dwarfism.

This phenomenon occurs when a species becomes smaller over evolutionary time in order to adapt to a restricted habitat such as an island.

According to Dr Glaw there could have been a "two-island effect" in the case of B. micra.

"It is possible that the big island of Madagascar has produced the general group of dwarf chameleons and the very small island has produced the tiny species," he told BBC Nature.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/17028940

That's really tiny

Gawd dayom.

I fear that they lit the match D:

That's something only a crazy physicist would do

Why else put it on a match? D:

This is old news Olex =P. Do you not watch any nature docus? xP

But yeah they are awesome, they're so tiny but just as advanced as any chamelon 5x their size.

It's new news D:
Article was from the 15th

Wow, didn't know they were just as advanced as normal chameleons.
That's epic

It's amazing how small they can get, can you imagine how small its organs have to be?
This thing must use a lot of energy/surface area

Or it needs only a little bit of energy. Either way, go evolution!!

Nu-uh. Life In Cold Blood covered this in 2008 aswell as the recent madagascar docu. but still freakin' cool.

07:32 for the pygmies.

No, thats a rule in biology. The smaller it is, the more energy it uses (If you looks at energy/area)
So an elephant can stay warm at a lower cost/area than a mouse. (because larger things cool down slower mostly) So the mouse needs to eat lots more and pump blood trough its body faster to keep its body temp at the desired temp

Now this guy is cold-blooded, but still sholdhave it hard. I wonder what they eat anyway o.o

Video says tiny flies... if you'd of watched it.

I posted that almost immediately after you, so I didn't see it
Nice vid though

These are even smaller though, as the one he held was a lot larger than a match-head.