Icthyophis kohtaoensis, a caecilian

The photo illustrates an embryo of Ichthyophis kohtaoensis, a member of the Order Gymnophiona (caecilians) in the Class Amphibia. Caecilians are as closely related to frogs and to salamanders as frogs and salamanders are to each other, among amphibians. Caecilians are limbless, elongate amphibians that mostly burrow in the substrate. They occur throughout most of the tropical regions of the world, but very little is known about their biology. The multi-segmented embryo, which had not yet hatched and was removed from the egg membrane for study, is curved around its reservoir of yolk. Its gills are apparent, as are its lateral line organs (the light spots on its head and down its body are mechanoreceptors and electroreceptors of the lateral line system). The eggs are laid in a burrow near a stream or other body of water, and are tended by the mother until they hatch. The larvae then wriggle into the water, where they live until they metamorphose a year later, and become terrestrial, burrowing adults. Research on the biology of caecilians in the M. H. Wake lab in the Department of Integrative Biology is yielding new insights into pattern and process of development and evolution.

Photo submitted by M. H. Wake. The photo taken by Dr. Adam Summers, Miller Postdoctoral Fellow, co-sponsored by M. Wake and D. Wake, in conjunction with the paper in J. Morph. 243(1), Jan. 2000, by Duenker, Wake, and Olson.