''Ichthyophis glutinosus'', the Ceylon caecilian or common yellow-banded caecilian, is a species of

caecilian Caecilians (; ) are a group of limbless, vermiform or serpentine amphibians. They mostly live hidden in the ground and in stream substrates, making them the least familiar order of amphibians. Caecilians are mostly distributed in the tropics of ...

in the family

Ichthyophiidae The Ichthyophiidae are the family of Asiatic tailed caecilians or fish caecilians found in South and Southeast Asia as well as southernmost China. They are primitive caecilians, lacking many of the derived characters found in the other families ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

. Its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s are moist tropical and subtropical forests and pastures.

Description

The Ceylon caecilian grows to about long and resembles a large

earthworm An earthworm is a terrestrial invertebrate that belongs to the phylum Annelida. They exhibit a tube-within-a-tube body plan; they are externally segmented with corresponding internal segmentation; and they usually have setae on all segments. Th ...

. The skin is formed into over 300 transverse folds which give the caecilian the appearance of being segmented. The head has a rounded snout and a pair of extensible

tentacle In zoology, a tentacle is a flexible, mobile, and elongated organ present in some species of animals, most of them invertebrates. In animal anatomy, tentacles usually occur in one or more pairs. Anatomically, the tentacles of animals work main ...

s near the mouth, rather closer to the eyes than to the nostrils. The colour of this caecilian is steely blue above and pale yellow underneath, with a yellow band running along either side of the body.

Distribution and habitat

The Ceylon caecilian is endemic to southwestern and central Sri Lanka. It has also been reported to occur in northeastern India, but more likely this sighting referred to a different species. It lives in burrows in damp earth or leaf litter in subtropical or tropical moist lowland and montane

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

s, subtropical or tropical

swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

s, cleared forested areas, and pasturelands at elevations of up to above sea level.

Biology

The Ceylon caecilian feeds on earthworms and other small invertebrates. When it has captured an earthworm, it reverses into its burrow, sometimes twisting its head around or twirling its whole body to subdue its prey. Reproduction takes place in underground chambers or other hidden places, where the female lays strings of about 30 white, jelly-coated eggs. She then coils her body around the eggs and broods them until they hatch into larvae about long. The larvae move out of the burrow and wriggle to pools or water courses that form in the wet season. They have three pairs of external feathery

gill A gill () is a respiratory organ that many aquatic organisms use to extract dissolved oxygen from water and to excrete carbon dioxide. The gills of some species, such as hermit crabs, have adapted to allow respiration on land provided they are ...

s, a

lateral line The lateral line, also called the lateral line organ (LLO), is a system of sensory organs found in fish, used to detect movement, vibration, and pressure gradients in the surrounding water. The sensory ability is achieved via modified epithelial ...

system, and a tail fin which enables them to swim. The gills persist, but they have lost their lateral lines by the time they undergo a relatively slow

metamorphosis Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops including birth or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and differentiation. Some inse ...

at about nine months old.

Status

The Ceylon caecilian is listed as being of "vulnerable" by the

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biologi ...

. This is because, although its range is probably less than , it is locally common in the areas in which it lives and does not seem to have any significant threats. It is a very adaptable animal and can cope with changes in its habitat. Large areas of its range are found in well-protected national parks, including the Sinharaja World Heritage Site, the Knuckles Range Forest Reserve, the Dellawa Forest Reserve and the

Udawatta Kele Sanctuary Udawattakele Forest Reserve often spelled as Udawatta Kele, is a historic forest reserve on a hill-ridge in the city of Kandy. It is 104 hectares (257 acres) large. During the days of the Kandyan kingdom, Udawattakele was known as "Uda Wasala Watta ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1058039 glutinosus Amphibians described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Amphibians of Sri Lanka Endemic fauna of Sri Lanka Taxonomy articles created by Polbot