Chikilas

Chikilidae is a family of Indian caecilians, the 10th and most recent (2012) family of caecilians (legless amphibians) to be identified, although the type species, Chikila fulleri (formerly Herpele fulleri) was first described in 1904. The discovery that this was a separate lineage resulted from genetic analyses of specimens collected during about 250 soil-digging expeditions over five years that covered every Northeast Indian state. A team of biologists led by University of Delhi herpetologist Sathyabhama Das...