1mm tiger sculpture is smaller than a grain of rice

A Taiwanese artist has created what he claims is the smallest sculpture of a tiger ever made - so small it could fit through the eye of a needle, and can only be seen properly with a magnifying glass.

Chen Forng-shean, who has been sculpting as a hobby for around 30 years, carved the tiger from resin in anticipation of the Chinese lunar Year of the Tiger, which begins on February 14.

Standing at just 1 millimetre (0.04 inch) high, and just over a millimetre long, he says that it's the world's tiniest tiger.



But Chen admits that the brightly coloured beast nearly got the best of him over 10 attempts to create it: 'If the hands shake a little bit, the work would jump away and disappear.'

'For this tiger, the toughest part is because it is three-dimensional. It can be looked at from any angle and still seem very lively. Colouring is also very hard, with the patterns on his back and the red colour on his tongue,' Chen, 54, added.

The single animal, created after three months of intensive labour, was finished in November and Chen - a minting plate designer by trade - said it was worth 3 million Taiwanese dollars (around £58,000), although it is not for sale.