''Eocaecilia'' is an
extinct genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...
of
gymnophiona
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 o ...
n
amphibian 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 province of the United States, including northern Arizona, northwest Colorado, Nevada, and Utah. Traditionally has been suggested ...
of
Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
, United States. One species is described, ''Eocaecilia micropodia''.
''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
eyes 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 or
temnospondyl
Temnospondyli (from Greek τέμνειν, ''temnein'' 'to cut' and σπόνδυλος, ''spondylos'' 'vertebra') is a diverse order of small to giant tetrapods—often considered primitive amphibians—that flourished worldwide during the Carbo ...
[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
{{Taxonbar, from=Q140417
Gymnophiona
Jurassic amphibians of North America
Early Jurassic animals of North America
Prehistoric amphibian genera
Jurassic Arizona
Transitional fossils
Fossil taxa described in 1993
Early Jurassic amphibians