The pygmy hog is the smallest hog and weighs about 15 pounds. But it has some competition in the small mammal category. The winner for smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat. This bat is the size of a bumblebee. It is also called the Kitti’s hog-nosed bat. It gets this name because its nose is pink and shaped like a pig’s snout.
How small is the smallest mammal on Earth? The bumblebee bat weighs two grams, which is about the weight of a paperclip. The bat measures only an inch in length. It would take 10 bumblebee bats lined up end-to-end to be as tall as a pygmy hog!
The bumblebee bat lives in groups of up to 100 in the limestone caves of Thailand. This bat comes out at dusk to catch insects in teak trees and clumps of bamboo. It only takes a couple of insects to fill up a bumblebee bat.
When we think of small mammals, the pygmy hog is small, but the bumblebee bat is even smaller!
