Scientists Name 200th Caecilian Species
Posted on April 16, 2014
Scientists at the Natural History Museum, London have named the 200th caecilian species. Caecilians are amphibians that resemble a cross between a worm and a snake. The creatures can be difficult to find because of their burrowing lifestyle. The newly described species, Ichthyophis multicolor, is the first caecilian discovered in Myanmar. It was found by scientists from the California Academy of Sciences who asked the Museum to identify it.
Natual History Museum scientist Dr. Mark Wilkinson says in a statement, "They have a lot of strange features, and because they are a poorly known group the adaptive significance of those features is not well understood."
Some of their strange features include "a sensitive tentacle that likely evolved out of unused components of the eye, and scales that form in pockets under the skin, rather than on the outside."
The new species is described here in Zootaxa.