German researchers have discovered a previously unknown species of chameleon on Madagascar that is just one inch long from tip to tail. The tiny lizards are some of the smallest reptiles on Earth, but their future is uncertain.

The coral reefs and beach-lined inlets look right out of a tourism brochure. Beyond that, however, the tiny island of Nosy Hara just off the northern tip of Madagascar is rather desolate. Only a few patches of forest cover the rocky bit of land, not the kind of place that looks particularly hospitable to wildlife.

Yet it is here that biologists have discovered a fascinating new species: the tiny chameleon Brookesia micra. From tip to tail, the mini-lizards measure less than three centimeters (1.2 inches), making them some of the smallest reptiles on Earth.

Mostly brown with a touch of green, the coloring of the diminutive creatures is far from spectacular. And they are unable to change their appearance like their larger cousins. Nonetheless, researchers are fascinated. "It's not the kind of thing where you have to perform extensive genetic analysis to realize that this is something new," Miguel Vences, a biologist with the Technical University of Braunschweig and the co-author of an article on the new species in the scientific journal PLoS ONE, told Spiegel Online.

Still, Vences and his colleagues, including Frank Glaw from the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology and Jorn Kohler of the Hesse State Museum in Darmstadt, have taken a closer look at the lizard's genetic makeup -- and that of other tiny chameleons they found in neighboring regions of Madagascar. In total, the researchers discovered four new species of miniature saurians.