Grandisoniidae |  |
24 species in 6 genera
Commonly Called Indo-African Caecilians
Gegeneophis nadkarnii
Photo by K. P. Dinesh
(Click for family gallery)These are small, slender caecilians with patchy distribution in India, Africa, and the Seychelles islands (Wilkinson et al. 2011).
This family is distinguished by the following combination of characters: imperfect stapes, presence of inner mandibular teeth, having some bicusped teeth, eye located at the border of the squamosal and maxillopalatines, and either viviparity plus lack of scales and lack of secondary annuli, or oviparity.
Formerly known as Indotyphlidae, Dubois et al. (2021) determined the appropriate name to be Grandisoniidae according to rules of the Nomenclatural Code.
News Highlight
July 11, 2016: Indian biodiversity is concentrated in three major, disjointed, wet-zones: North-East India and the Western and Eastern Ghats of peninsular India. There is little overlap in the biota found in each of these zones, which begs the question of what the biogeographic origins for the biota are in each zone and how the biota are related to each other. Gower et al. 2016 explored these questions using the genus Gegeneophis, which occurs in both the biologically well-explored Western Ghats and the less explored Eastern Ghats, to build a molecular clock. Although the mechanism is still unclear, they found that the only known Eastern Ghats caecilian, Gegeneophis orientalis, split from all Western Ghats at least 35 mya during the late Eocene or early Oligocene. The authors argue for increased exploration of the Eastern Ghats as the region may have provided a moist refugium for a sustained amount of time during the mid-Cenozoic era and thus may have many undescribed, low-vagility, endemic, taxa. (AChang)Written by AmphibiaWebNotable Family Characteristics
- Inhabits moist tropical rainforests
- Fossorial
- Viviparity and oviparity
- Many species known to show egg-guarding or other parental care
- Distribution is patchy with members in southern and northeastern India, Seychelles Islands, and Africa in Cameroon and Ethiopia.
Cartography Credit: Zoe Yoo, UC Berkeley
Range maps sources: AmphibiaWeb, UC Berkeley, and IUCN RedListRelevant Reference
Dubois, A., A. Ohler, and R. A. Pyron. 2021. New concepts and methods for phylogenetic taxonomy and nomenclature in zoology, exemplified by a new ranked cladonomy of recent amphibians (Lissamphibia). Megataxa 5: 1–738
Pough, F. H., R. M. Andrews, M. L. Crump, A. H. Savitzky, K. D. Wells, and M. C. Brandley. 2015. Herpetology. Fourth Edition. Massachusetts: Sinauer.
Vitt, L. J., and J. P. Caldwell. 2013. Herpetology. An Introductory Biology of Amphibians and Reptiles. Fourth Edition. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Wilkinson, M., San Mauro, D., Sherratt, E., and Gower, D. J. 2011. A nine-family classification of caecilians (Amphibia: Gymnophiona). Zootaxa 2874: 41-64.
Genus Gegeneophis (12 species)
Gegeneophis carnosus account photos no sound/video Gegeneophis danieli account photos no sound/video Gegeneophis goaensis no account photos no sound/video Gegeneophis krishni no account no photos no sound/video Gegeneophis madhavai account no photos no sound/video Gegeneophis mhadeiensis account photos no sound/video Gegeneophis orientalis no account no photos no sound/video Gegeneophis pareshi account photos no sound/video Gegeneophis primus no account no photos no sound/video Gegeneophis ramaswamii account no photos no sound/video Gegeneophis seshachari no account photos no sound/video Gegeneophis tejaswini no account no photos no sound/video
Genus Hypogeophis (7 species)
Hypogeophis alternans account no photos no sound/video Hypogeophis brevis account no photos no sound/video Hypogeophis larvata account no photos no sound/video Hypogeophis montanus no account no photos no sound/video Hypogeophis pti no account no photos no sound/video Hypogeophis rostratus account no photos no sound/video Hypogeophis sechellensis account no photos no sound/video
Genus Idiocranium (1 species)
Idiocranium russeli account no photos no sound/video
Genus Indotyphlus (2 species)
Indotyphlus battersbyi no account photos no sound/video Indotyphlus maharashtraensis account photos no sound/video
Genus Praslinia (1 species)
Praslinia cooperi account no photos no sound/video
Genus Sylvacaecilia (1 species)
Sylvacaecilia grandisonae account no photos no sound/video
Citation: AmphibiaWeb: Information on amphibian biology and conservation. [web application]. Berkeley, California: AmphibiaWeb. Available: https://amphibiaweb.org/. (Accessed:
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