''Eocaecilia'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

gymnophiona Caecilians (; ) are a group of limbless, vermiform (worm-shaped) or serpentine (snake-shaped) amphibians with small or sometimes nonexistent eyes. They mostly live hidden in soil or in streambeds, and this cryptic lifestyle renders caecilians ...

amphibian Amphibians are ectothermic, anamniote, anamniotic, tetrapod, four-limbed vertebrate animals that constitute the class (biology), class Amphibia. In its broadest sense, it is a paraphyletic group encompassing all Tetrapod, tetrapods, but excl ...

from the early Jurassic

Kayenta Formation The Kayenta Formation is a geological formation in the Glen Canyon Group that is spread across the Colorado Plateau area of the United States, including northern Arizona, northwest Colorado, Nevada, and Utah. Originally suggested as being Sinemur ...

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

, United States. One species is described, ''Eocaecilia micropodia''. Eocaecilia BW

''Eocaecilia'' shared some characteristics with

salamander Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All t ...

s and the now extinct microsaur amphibians. It was of small size, about 15 cm in length. Unlike modern caecilians, which are legless, ''Eocaecilia'' possessed small legs, and while modern caecilians have poorly developed

eye An eye is a sensory organ that allows an organism to perceive visual information. It detects light and converts it into electro-chemical impulses in neurons (neurones). It is part of an organism's visual system. In higher organisms, the ey ...

s and spend a lot of time under ground, ''Eocaecilias eyes were somewhat better developed. Although the precise ancestry of ''Eocaecilia'' is debated (and other caecilians by extension), it likely resided among the ancestral

lepospondyl Lepospondyli is a diverse clade of early tetrapods. With the exception of one late-surviving lepospondyl from the Late Permian of Morocco ('' Diplocaulus minimus''), lepospondyls lived from the Visean stage of the Early Carboniferous to the Earl ...

temnospondyl Temnospondyli (from Greek language, Greek τέμνειν, ''temnein'' 'to cut' and σπόνδυλος, ''spondylos'' 'vertebra') or temnospondyls is a diverse ancient order (biology), order of small to giant tetrapods—often considered Labyrinth ...

Maddin H.C., Jenkins F.A. Jr. & Anderson J.S. (2012
The Braincase of ''Eocaecilia micropodia'' (Lissamphibia, Gymnophiona) and the Origin of Caecilians
''PLoS ONE'' 7(12):e50743. amphibians of the Paleozoic and Mesozoic.

References

External links

Gymnophiona Early Jurassic amphibians Jurassic amphibians of North America Early Jurassic animals of North America Prehistoric amphibian genera Jurassic Arizona Kayenta Formation Transitional fossils Fossil taxa described in 1993 {{Caecilian-stub