1Hey, it's Esther.
2Want to see something cool?
3You're looking at one of the world's smallest drones.
4It's called the Piccolissimo,
5and it would definitely fit in your pocket.
6It's the size of a quarter.
7Someone named Brady is curious about something else that's really small.
8Something that's actually alive.
9Let's give Brady a call now.
10Hi, Esther!
11Hey, Brady.
12I have a question for you.
13What is the smallest animal on Earth?
14Ooh, that's a great question.
15A lot of animals are really small.
16These animals are small, but that's because they're all babies.
17But when scientists try to answer this question,
18they're looking at which animal is the smallest when they're all grown up.
19Can you think of any animals that fit that description?
20Before I go on, I'm curious.
21What do you think is the smallest animal on Earth?
22Now would be a good time to pause the video and discuss.
23Okay, you ready?
24Believe it or not, this isn't an easy question to answer.
25There are just so many animals in the world to choose from,
26and a lot of them are pretty tiny when they're all grown up.
27Like this one.
28This is a Tasmanian Pygmy Possum.
29Pretty small, right?
30Pygmy possums like this one are smaller than the crayons you use at school.
31And remember, that's when they're all grown up.
32Being tiny is a good thing because it helps them hide from predators,
33and let them navigate through the forest in Australia, where they live.
34The Tasmanian pygmy possum is the smallest possum in the world.
35But guess what?
36We can go even smaller than that.
37See this animal?
38It's an Etruscan shrew,
39one of the smallest land animals by weight in the world.
40It only weighs 1.5 grams.
41That's about the weight of a paper clip or a raisin.
42Incredible!
43Now, if we're only thinking of fuzzy animals,
44the kind that have arms and legs to help them walk around,
45then the Etruscan shrew might win the prize for smallest animal on Earth.
46But wait a second.
47Not all animals look like that.
48In fact, some of the tiniest animals on Earth might not be what you expected.
49Like, have you ever seen one of these?
50Zooplankton live in the ocean,
51and they're really small.
52Only a little bigger than the tip of your pencil.
53And though it doesn't look like an animal, it is!
54Like all animals, zooplankton have to find food to eat
55because they can't make their own food like plants can.
56But they can't easily move on their own like a lot of animals.
57They have to use the ocean currents to float around and find food.
58Like zooplankton, there are a ton of tiny creatures that people might not recognize as animals at first.
59Like insects.
60Yep, insects are animals too,
61and they're some of the tiniest creatures of all.
62And you find them in the most unexpected places.
63I once rescued a cat from someone's garage,
64and when I looked at its fur, it looked pretty normal.
65But then I looked closely and I saw something moving:
66fleas.
67Fleas are so tiny!
68I couldn't believe how small they were.
69If I hadn't looked closely, I would have never found them.
70Fleas are so small that they can sneak into hard-to-get places to find food or hide,
71like in another animal's fur.
72But one of the smallest insects of all is even smaller than a flea.
73It's called a fairyfly,
74and it's so tiny that it can fit on the tip of a needle.
75The fairyfly is one of the smallest flying creatures on Earth.
76But even though it can fly, it sometimes chooses not to.
77Instead, it likes to hitch a ride on the back of a butterfly to get around.
78And it's so small that the butterfly doesn't even notice.
79Okay, the fairyfly is definitely one of the smallest animals on Earth.
80But to find the smallest animal of all,
81we'll need to look under a microscope.
82See those dots moving around?
83Those are actually animals called Myxobolus shekel.
84It's a relative of jellyfish,
85and it's so small that if you put 1,000 of them end to end,
86the line would only be as big as a paperclip.
87Many scientists think the Myxobolus shekel is the smallest animal on Earth... for now.
88But there are so many tiny animals out there
89that it's possible a new and even smaller animal will be discovered in the near future.
90Pretty cool!
91So in summary, the smallest animals on Earth aren't just the fuzzy ones with arms, eyes, and legs to get around
92like the Tasmanian pygmy possum or the Etruscan shrew.
93The world's tiniest animals don't look like that at all.
94Like zooplankton in the ocean or insects like fleas and fairyflies.
95And the smallest animal on Earth, at least for now, the Myxobolus shekel
96that you can only see under a microscope.
97That's all for this week's question!
98Thanks, Brady, for asking it.