The world's tiniest animals may seem helpless and endearing, but despite their diminutive stature, they are capable of much more than just appearing cute. Their small stature serves them well in a variety of ways, including climbing across delicate branches to search for insects and avoiding predators by hiding in small crevices. What size is the tiniest mammal, and how does it compare? Life's Little Mysteries keeps score

Pygmy possum

The pygmy possum (Cercartetus nanus), which resembles a chinchilla more than a kangaroo, belongs to the same family as wombats, Tasmanian devils, and koalas, which is the marsupial family. 

Pygmy possums weigh 10 to 45 grams and range in length from 2 to 4 inches.Pygmy possums utilise their tails to hang upside-down from trees, just like their larger possum counterparts do. Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Indonesia are all home to them. 

The small possum curls up into a ball in the winter and goes into torpor, or brief hibernation, by covering its eyes with its ears. It doesn't need to eat during this time because its metabolism and body temperature are both decreased; instead, it feeds on the fat reserves in its tail.

Shrew moles in America

The American shrew mole (Neurotrichus gibbsii) is about 2.5 inches long, with a 1-inch tail, and weighs 10 grams, which is equal to two nickels. Living in the damp forests of the northwest United States and southwest British Columbia, it is also known as the Gibb's shrew mole. 

The American shrew mole, like other moles, has long snouts with flattened tips and sharp, pointed nails on its paws for digging. However, unlike its relatives, the American shrew mole frequently forages for food above ground, unlike its relatives, which spend the most of their life constructing underground tunnels. For bug hunting, it can also climb shrubs.

A jerboa pygmy

When the pygmy jerboa went viral on YouTube in 2010, it shot to fame because it resembled a mix between a mouse and a baby kangaroo. The teeny, hyper creature is the tiniest mouse in existence, measuring only approximately 3 grammes. Pygmy jerboas typically measure 2 inches long, with a tail that can range in length from 3 to 10 inches.

There are 25 different species of jerboa, the most common of which is the pygmy jerboa (Salpingotulus michaelis), which is native to Pakistan and Afghanistan. In fact, the long-eared Euphrates jerboa (Allactaga euphratica), one of its species, is so adored in Afghanistan that the nation's government dedicated a stamp to the rodent in 1989.

Ancient shrew

A dime weighs about two grammes, which is how much the Etruscan shrew (Suncus etruscus) weighs. Without its tail, which is one third of its body length, it can reach lengths of between 1.5 and 2 inches. Stretched to around 2.3 inches with the tail attached. This little shrew has a big appetite and may frequently consume up to its own weight in food each day. A heartbeat of up to 25 beats per second, or 1,500 beats per minute, is also present in this creature. The typical heartbeat of a human is 72 beats per minute, by contrast.

insect bats

The bumblebee bat (Craseonycteris thonglongyai), which weighs just 2 grammes and is roughly the size of a huge bumblebee, is the tiniest mammal in the world. Its length ranges from 1 to 1.3 inches. Because of its pink, pig-like snout, this bat, discovered in 1974 by Thai biologist Kitti Thonglongya, is also known as Kitti's hog-nosed bat. The small bat lives in caves in sections of western Thailand and Myanmar (also known as Burma), where it forms colonies with typically fewer than 100 other bats.

Lemur mouse

The tiniest primate in the world is a kind of lemur found only in Madagascar. The Duke Lemur Center states that although there are 18 species of mouse lemurs, they typically weigh between 1.5 and 3 ounces. According to the Duke Lemur Center, these monkeys hunt for food at night, seeking out fruit, flowers, leaves, insects (mainly beetles), and insects.