The embryos eat their mother from inside: with special foetal teeth they scrape the inner lining of the oviduct, rich in fat and nutrients, which the mother renews continuously over the seven months of gestation.
From Rio Cauca Caecilian
The caecilians are the third order of amphibians and the least known: some two hundred limbless species, almost all of them underground, that most people do not even know exist.
From Rio Cauca Caecilian
It has a pair of retractable tentacles between the eye and the nostril, chemosensory organs unique to the caecilians with which it detects prey in murky water or underground.
From Rio Cauca Caecilian
It is one of the largest caecilians in the world and can exceed eighty centimetres, a size that comes as a surprise in an animal almost nobody sees because it spends its life underground.
From Bearded Caecilia
It digs by pushing with its head: its skull is heavily ossified and its jaws close through a muscular system unique among vertebrates, with one muscle working in the opposite direction to the usual.
From Bearded Caecilia
It is viviparous and its embryos scrape the nutritive lining of the mother's oviduct with foetal teeth for months, a layer the mother renews continuously.
From Bearded Caecilia
Its gestation lasts close to eleven months, one of the longest of any amphibian, and the young are born measuring almost a third of their mother's length.
From Mexican Caecilian
It digs with its head: the skull is heavily ossified and compact, and it uses it as a battering ram to force its way through damp soil, closing its mouth underneath so as not to swallow earth.
From Mexican Caecilian

Ecosystems

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