Three New Species of Caecilians with Juan Fernández

For some, roadkill is just roadkill. For one researcher, it was the start of a brand new career path.

Did you know that there is a group of animals that are legless like snakes and burrow through the ground like worms? Meet Caecilians, an amazing group of amphibians that just received 3 new species courtesy of Dr. Juan David Fernández and his team from Bogotá, Colombia. They examined specimens from the Cordillera Oriental to help piece together the story of Caecilian biodiversity in the Andes. Listen to this interview to learn about these unique creatures and what they can tell us about one of the most fascinating biodiversity hotspots in the world. And in case you’re curious, the new species pictured here (Caecilia macrodonta) is aptly named- it has the largest dentary teeth of the entire genus!

Juan David Fernández’s paper “On the identities of Caecilia degenerata Dunn, 1942 and of C. corpulenta Taylor, 1968 (Amphibia: Gymnophiona: Caeciliidae) with descriptions of three new species of Caecilia Linnaeus, 1758 from the Cordillera Oriental of Colombia” is in the January 5, 2023, edition of Zootaxa. It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5227.2.3

New Species: Caecilia atelolepis, Caecilia epicrionopsoides, and Caecilia macrodonta

Episode image courtesy of Juan David Fernández Follow Juan on instagram: @jdfernandezr Or check out his researchgate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Juan-Fernandez-Roldan-2

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