Studies on Caecilians (Amphibia: Gymnophiona: Ichthyophiidae) of North East India with Description of Three New Species of Ichthyophis from Garo Hills, Meghalaya, and Additional Information on Ichthyophis garoensis Pillai and Ravichandran, 1999

About this book

Caecilians or limbless amphibians fall under the order Gymnophiona of the class amphibia. The mostly fossorial and tropical Ichthyophiidae and its sister Taxa Uraeotyphlidae are the only caecilian families restricted to Asia (Gower et al., 2002). They are believed to have been dispersed from India to South East Asia. The latter with a single genus is restricted to the Southern part of the Western Ghats. Ichthyophid taxonomy is not adequately established to enable a confident specific identification mostly because of their external similarity. The authors took a passionate interest to collect and study these animals from Northeast India, particularly Meghalaya and specifically from Garo Hills. Caecilians are popularly known as 'Chikil' to the people of Garo Hills.

Contents

Introduction
Materials and methods
Ecology and natural history
Genus Ichthyophis Fitzinger, 1826

Key to the striped species of Ichthyophis of North East India
1. Ichthyophis alfredii sp. nov
2. Ichthyophis daribokensis sp. nov
3. Ichthyophis nokrekensis sp. nov
4. Ichthyophis garoensis Pillai and Ravichandran, 1999

Discussion
Acknowledgements
References

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