This article is about a genus of fish. For the song The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus) by rock group Yes, see
Fragile (Yes album). For the genus of plants, see
Schindleria (plant).
The infant fishes are so called because they retain many of their
larval characteristics (an example of
neoteny). Their elongated bodies are
transparent, and many of the bones never develop. S. praematura reaches a length of 2.5 cm (0.98 in). All of the Schindleria species are
reef fishes. They may be among the most common fish of the reefs, based on the results of
plankton tows, but because of their transparency and small size, they are infrequently seen in life.
A recently described species, the
stout infantfish, S. brevipinguis, was briefly the world's smallest known
vertebrate at 8 mm (about one-third inch), smaller even than the dwarf
gobies, until the new record was set by the 7.9-mm Paedocypris progenetica in early 2006 and supplanted by the 7.7-mm frog Paedophryne amauensis in 2012.[5]
Apparently several (at least eight) further Schindleria species, native to the
Ryukyu Islands, are yet to be described formally.
^Abu El‐Regal, Mohamed A.; El‐Sherbiny, Mohsen M.; Gabr, Mohamed H.;
Fricke, Ronald (2021). "Schindleria parva, a new species of Schindler's fish (Teleostei: Schindleriidae: Schindleria) from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Red Sea". Journal of Fish Biology. 99 (4): 1485–1491.
doi:
10.1111/jfb.14857.
PMID34270084.
S2CID235958855.