Schindleria
Schindleria is a genus of marine fish. It was the only genus of family Schindleriidae, among the Gobioidei of order Perciformes but is now classified under the Gobiidae in the Gobiiformes. The type species is S. praematura, Schindler's fish. The Schindleria species are known generically as Schindler's fishes after German zoologist Otto Schindler, or infantfishes. They are native to the southern Pacific Ocean, from the South China Sea to the Great Barrier Reef off eastern Australia, and Rapa Nui.
Description
The infant fishes are so called because they retain many of their larval characteristics. Their elongated bodies are transparent, and many of the bones never develop. S. praematura reaches a length of. 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, 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.
Apparently several further Schindleria species, native to the Ryukyu Islands, are yet to be described formally.