Amphibians are ectothermic, tetrapod vertebrates of the class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arboreal or freshwater aquatic ecosystems. Thus amphibians typically start out as larvae living in water, but some species have developed behavioural adaptations to bypass this.
Caecilians are a group of limbless, vermiform or serpentine amphibians. They mostly live hidden in the ground and in stream substrates, making them the least familiar order of amphibians. Caecilians are mostly distributed in the tropics of South and Central America, Africa, and southern Asia. Their diet consists of small subterranean creatures such as earthworms.
Rhinatrematidae is a family of caecilians, also known as the Neotropical tailed caecilians, American tailed caecilians. or beaked caecilians. They are found in the equatorial countries of South America.
Caeciliidae is the family of common caecilians. They are found in Central and South America. Like other caecilians, they superficially resemble worms or snakes.
Indotyphlus maharashtraensis is a species of caecilians described in 2004 by scientists of Bombay Natural History Society and the Natural History Museum, London. It is only the second species of Indotyphlus known to science, and only known from its type locality near Humbarli village, Satara District, in the Western Ghats of Maharashtra, India. Common names Humbarli caecilian, Maharashtra caecilian, and Konkan tail-less caecilian have been coined for it.
Praslinia cooperi, or Cooper's black caecilian, is a species of caecilian in the family Grandisoniidae. It is monotypic in the genus Praslinia. It is found on Mahé and Silhouette Islands in the Seychelles. An old reported sighting on its namesake Praslin is not known to be correct.
Atretochoana eiselti is a species of caecilian originally known only from two preserved specimens discovered by Sir Graham Hales in the Brazilian rainforest, while on an expedition with Sir Brian Doll in the late 1800s, but rediscovered in 2011 by engineers working on a hydroelectric dam project in Brazil. Until 1998, it was known only from the type specimen in the Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna. Originally placed in the genus Typhlonectes in 1968, it was reclassified into its own monotypic genus, Atretochoana, in 1996. It was also found to be more closely related to the genus Potamotyphlus than Typholonectes. The species is the largest of the few known lungless tetrapods, and the only known lungless caecilian.
Boulengerula fischeri is a species of caecilian in the family Herpelidae. It is endemic to Rwanda and only known from around its type locality near Cyangugu, southwestern Rwanda. The specific name fischeri honours Eberhard Fischer, a German botanist who has worked with Rwandan fauna and flora. Common name Fischer's African caecilian has been coined for it. Live animals have the appearance of "live pink spaghetti".
Dermophis is a genus of worm-like amphibians in the family Dermophiidae, the Neotropical and Tropical African caecilians. They are found in the Middle America between southern Mexico and northwestern Colombia. Common names Mexican caecilians or Neotropical caecilians are sometimes used for them.
Siphonops annulatus, the ringed caecilian, is a species of caecilian in the family Siphonopidae from South America. It might have the broadest known distribution among terrestrial caecilian species.
Sylvacaecilia is a monotypic genus of caecilian in the family Grandisoniidae. The only species is Sylvacaecilia grandisonae, also known as the Aleku caecilian or Ethiopian caecilian. It is endemic to southwestern Ethiopia and known from the Gambela, Oromia, and Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Regions.
Typhlonectes compressicauda, the Cayenne caecilian, is a species of amphibian in the family Typhlonectidae that lives in water. It is found in Amazonian Brazil, Peru, and Colombia as well as in Guyana and French Guiana, and likely Suriname, and according to some sources, Venezuela. It is an aquatic caecilian that inhabits permanent rivers and marshes mainly in the lowland forest zone.
Ichthyophis glutinosus, the Ceylon caecilian or common yellow-banded caecilian, is a species of caecilian in the family Ichthyophiidae endemic to Sri Lanka. Its natural habitats are moist tropical and subtropical forests and pastures.
Rhinatrema is a genus of caecilians in the family Rhinatrematidae. Their common name is two-lined caecilians. The genus is known from the Guyanas and adjacent Brazil. Most Rhinatrema are known to inhabit and live in areas of tropical forests where there is an abundance of dense, dead vegetation matter.
Gegeneophis is a genus of amphibians in the family Grandisoniidae. They are found in southern and northeastern India.
Indotyphlus is a small genus of caecilians in the family Grandisoniidae. As caecilians in general, they superficially resemble earthworms. The genus is endemic to the Western Ghats, India. They are sometimes known as Battersby's caecilians.
The Grandisoniidae are a family of common caecilians found in Africa, Seychelles and India. Like other caecilians, they superficially resemble worms or snakes. The family was formerly known as Indotyphlidae.
Hypogeophis is a genus of caecilians in the family Grandisoniidae. The genus consists of four species, all endemic to parts of the Seychelles Archipelago.
Procera is a hypothetical clade of amphibians that includes salamanders and caecilians but not frogs. A close relationship between salamanders and caecilians is a competing hypothesis to the more widely supported view that salamanders and frogs are each other's closest relatives within a clade called Batrachia. Procera was proposed as a clade in 1998 and has been supported by few recent morphological and molecular studies.
Marvalee Hendricks Wake is an American zoologist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, known for her research in the biology of caecilians and vertebrate development and evolution. A 1988 Guggenheim Fellow, she has served as president of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, International Union of Biological Sciences, and the International Society of Vertebrate Morphology. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the California Academy of Sciences, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
