[HN Gopher] 'Smallest reptile on earth' discovered in Madagascar
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'Smallest reptile on earth' discovered in Madagascar
Author : pseudolus
Score : 199 points
Date : 2021-02-05 12:07 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| andersource wrote:
| The blog post the article refers to (couldn't find it in the
| article itself): http://www.markscherz.com/archives/4800
| terramars wrote:
| Did no one else notice the gem in here that BBC failed to
| mention, that this lizard has one of if not the largest dicks
| relative to body size of any vertebrate? Due to gender size
| dysmorphism and internal fertilization.
| acomjean wrote:
| Thanks.
|
| Interesting discussion about "smallest" depend on how size is
| measured: " As a result, whether or not the new species is
| considered the smallest amniote in the world depends on whether
| we define that based on the male or female body size, or the
| midpoint of the two. It turns out this is quite a common
| problem in other species with size dimorphism as well, such as
| frogs."
| andersource wrote:
| Yeah, I wasn't even aware that such size dimorphism existed
| to such extent in some species.
| jjjbokma wrote:
| The anglerfish and Trichonephila clavipes are nice examples
| of size dimorphism.
| bstar77 wrote:
| Title should read: 'Smallest known reptile on earth' discovered
| in Madagascar.
| yreg wrote:
| That's implicit. One could add "as far as it is known" to any
| headline, but to what purpose?
| bstar77 wrote:
| I don't find it implicit and feel it has a tinge of hubris.
| Too much is reported as fact, and taken as such, when it's
| just a best guess.
| ryan_j_naughton wrote:
| I disagree entirely. Some sets are completely known and
| others are not.
|
| For example, the youngest American president is accurate as
| we know all of the American presidents.
|
| While, we are discovering thousands of new species every
| year.
|
| It is important to remind people of this fact of species
| being an unknown set size.
| dmurray wrote:
| > we know all of the American presidents.
|
| But not their birth certificates!
| lisper wrote:
| > we know all of the American presidents
|
| So far.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| The quotes clue us in, its a title. The title is won again each
| time a smaller reptile is discovered. That was my immediate
| understanding on seeing the article. No extra words needed!
| meetups323 wrote:
| > a chameleon subspecies that is the size of a seed
|
| "seed" is needlessly vague term here... mustard seed or coconut?
| stickyricky wrote:
| The article provides a length of 13.5mm which is only 10mm
| shorter than the distance between the seed comparison and the
| reported length of the species.
| meetups323 wrote:
| > 10mm shorter than the distance between the seed comparison
|
| This doesn't parse for me. You mean the difference between
| the two lengths of seeds I gave? Thats 150mm - 3mm, which is
| more than 10mm longer than 13.5mm.
| hn2fast wrote:
| I was going to make the exact same comparison with the
| mustard seed and coconut, but looking at the numbers, it
| more or less tracks as being the center of the log scale
| between the two seeds. Palm seeds in general are
| exceptionally large compared to anything else, while we're
| at it.
| asymptosis wrote:
| I came here to say the exact same thing. Who even goes around
| comparing things to seeds anyway? The writer was trying to be
| cute but just ended up saying something bizarre and stupid.
| airstrike wrote:
| When somebody says "seed", do you think mustard seed or coconut
| seed?
| meetups323 wrote:
| I think of a broad category of items including strawberry
| seeds, mustard seeds, sunflower seeds, mango seeds and other
| "pit"s, up to coconut seeds. I think "sunflower seed" would
| have been a better comparison, as its something a person can
| actually visualize, not a 3 order of magnitude spanning
| category.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| It's just meant to give a rough visual. The article
| provides the exact length.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| It fails to give a rough visual, though. The picture of
| it on a fingertip is much better for that.
| edgyquant wrote:
| The average person thinks of a mustard seed or some other
| small seed. I also think you know this and are being
| pedantic.
| vram22 wrote:
| Skinks can be fairly small, like a few inches. Used to like
| watching them as a kid.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skink
| TrispusAttucks wrote:
| These little creatures would be a good candidate for pets. Small,
| cute, could use a boost to their numbers.
| dvtrn wrote:
| Except for the part where the article mentions these little
| critters might be facing possible extinction _already_ if it
| weren't for protection laws for its native biodome.
|
| Be a lot cooler if we didn't hasten that just to put them in
| little glass boxes in our domiciles, forced breeding of
| domesticated canine and felines have already enough caused
| genetic problems with breathing and bone density among certain
| breeds-for example.
|
| Let's let these little fellas thrive unmolested, does anyone
| know where I (as a westerner) could learn more about the
| conservation efforts mentioned in the article?
| vidanay wrote:
| House cats love them.
| pistoriusp wrote:
| Not all animals make good pets.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| I think all business savy people think the same thing.
|
| I would love to bring these cameleons on my travels on the
| plane.
| siltpotato wrote:
| That would cause Australian rabbits or Georgia kudzu. Not a
| good plan.
| EVdotIO wrote:
| I'm guessing it probably needs a very specific diet and climate
| to survive. If this is like other chameleons, they are prone to
| all sorts of health issues and in general very hard to keep
| alive.
| xwdv wrote:
| Nonsense, a shrewd capitalist can easily sell these in kits
| with everything you need to keep them alive. They are so
| small, and if they die well they are tiny you can probably
| just get a new one and most people will probably keep like 4
| or 5 of them at a time anyway, probably breeding their own
| replacements. These are fantastic can't wait to have a
| terrarium filled with them.
| mekoka wrote:
| Was it _discovered_ , meaning that the indigenous population
| didn't know about it, doesn't have a name for it, cannot tell you
| anything about it, or meaning that it will now be _introduced_ in
| a formal taxonomy?
| Yenrabbit wrote:
| There are several similar small chameleons around the island,
| which have been long known by locals and tourists. But this new
| one is 'micro-endemic' to a very small, remote region. Probably
| been seen before, but I think 'discovered' is fair in this case
| when talking about discovering that this is a separate,
| undescribed species and not one of the more widespread ones.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| A second issue is that, at lower levels, taxonomy isn't a
| very well defined thing. (Perhaps one way to think of it is
| that phylogeny maps onto taxonomy and this mapping isn't
| injective.) So if two groups of animals are reclassified as
| two species, it is hard to say whether or not a new species
| was discovered. Especially if the two variants were known
| before--should one backdate the species discovery to the time
| the variants were identified? Similarly, a species doesn't
| really go extinct if the taxonomy changes so two species are
| merged into one.
|
| The vernacular names for some group of animals (or plants)
| needn't correspond to some clade that gets a taxonomical
| name. Eg broccoli and cabbage are considered the same
| species, whereas 'crab' may refer to all sorts of largely
| unrelated animals.
| akiselev wrote:
| _> The vernacular names for some group of animals (or
| plants) needn't correspond to some clade that gets a
| taxonomical name. Eg broccoli and cabbage are considered
| the same species, whereas 'crab' may refer to all sorts of
| largely unrelated animals._
|
| Broccoli ( _Brassica oleracea var. botrytis_ ) and cabbage
| ( _var. costata /italica_) are bad examples [1], since
| subspecies and varieties are well defined as ranks in
| botanical taxonomy and there are regulatory structures
| based on them. I think a better example would be hybrids
| like plumcots which are crosses of multiple species.
| Fitting them cleanly into natural taxonomy is a huge mess -
| over evolutionary timescales hybrids usually outcompete,
| converge with, or diverge from their parents enough to
| clean up their taxa for us.
|
| [1] https://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=brol -
| Subordinate Taxa tab
| albertgoeswoof wrote:
| Why is this semantic definition relevant?
| Yenrabbit wrote:
| B. nana, brought to us by the guy who named some pygmy frogs
| 'Mini scule', 'Mini ature' and 'Mini mum'. I'm looking forward to
| the next few things they're working on going public :)
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Whenever I see the word minuscule, I'm reminded of a time in my
| childhood when my brother's teacher spelled it wrong on a
| spelling test (that week was to have a collection of words
| starting mini-, though looking now it seems that miniscule is
| such a common variant that it is often accepted)
| kingdomcome50 wrote:
| Here's to hoping its some kind of newt. It would basically name
| itself!
| gherkinnn wrote:
| Brought to you by Dr. Scherz [0]. Scherz meaning "Joke" in
| German.
|
| 0 - http://www.markscherz.com/archives/4055
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Must be some fundamental limit on the size of organs and tissues,
| to still function. Or, there are smaller reptiles and we just
| haven't 'seen' them yet! Who's looking behind every blade of
| grass for an iguana after all.
|
| Insects win the 'smallest' title - the Fairy Wasp is 0.13mm
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Plenty of reptiles hatch from an egg smaller than this and can
| fend for themselves. The only thing special is that the growth
| of these and other miniature chameleons ends at an abnormally
| small size.
| TylerE wrote:
| Citation?
|
| Reptiles tend to have pretty large babies in comparison to
| their body size, actually.
|
| Babies are smaller, but not nearly THIS small. Most typical
| lizards are already several inches straight out of the egg.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| It occurs to me, that the eggs of this reptile are by
| necessity much smaller than the adult. Thus, the young are
| likely born somewhat smaller than the given record-breaking
| size.
| TylerE wrote:
| But read the post I'm replying to. Most reptiles are FAR
| larger the adults of this species even right out of the
| egg.
| cromka wrote:
| > Insects win the 'smallest' title - the Fairy Wasp is 0.13mm
|
| I find this photo mesmerizing. It's almost as if it was
| digitally rendered, or sculptured with metal:
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Mymarill...
| ralfd wrote:
| Maybe the limit is not function, but being competitive. Insects
| don't have lungs and an open instead of closed circulatory
| system, with a tubular "heart" sloshing around hemolymph
| instead of blood. At this small size this should have
| advantages?
| pitspotter wrote:
| Yes, and I was thinking about its eyes.
|
| The human eyeball has diameter roughly equal to the entire
| length of this lizard, making its volume 10,000X larger than
| the lizard's eyeball.
|
| OTOH, with a pupil that small, visual depth of field must be
| large. So perhaps the nano-chameleon doesn't need to do much
| in the way of focussing.
|
| Small wonder they took so long to discover :-p
| pdpi wrote:
| > OTOH, with a pupil that small, visual depth of field must
| be large.
|
| But the pupil is also small enough that diffraction is a
| major issue so their visual acuity is probably quite poor
| pitspotter wrote:
| Good point. So it can also 'get away with' having tiny
| retinas, since there's less information available to
| resolve.
| itissid wrote:
| I was wondering the same thing. But as pointed out here[1].
| There are some interesting points:
|
| Cell size is actually affected to genome size and cell size has
| a more complex relation to Physical Shapes and sizes:
|
| " As a result, species that are the same physical size but have
| different genome and cell sizes likely also differ in ways that
| significantly affect morphogenesis, growth, and adult
| morphology. Analysis of organismal size and size change thus
| becomes a consideration not simply of physical size, but also
| of a more elusive concept-biological size."
|
| Even within a species the variation is tremendous:
|
| "In some groups, miniaturization may have been achieved by cell
| size decrease (65). In others, extensive genome and cell size
| variation complicates tremendously even basic comparisons of
| body size among taxa."
|
| I remember seeing attenborough on TV how a species of frogs
| living in the cold areas just allow themselves to be frozen for
| long periods of time and then thaw back to life!
|
| [1]
| https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James_Hanken/publicatio...
| globular-toast wrote:
| When did the BBC start fucking with the back button? Every time I
| click a link from here I have to rapidly press back to come back.
| So annoying.
| 93po wrote:
| The back button went down the memory hole along with their
| integrity.
| nwellinghoff wrote:
| Awesome. Hope these little guys survive.
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