GYMNOPHIONA
CAECILIANS

The Gymnophiona or Apoda is the suborder of the Amphibia containing all the "legless amphibians", the caecilians, often overlooked aquatic or fossorial (burrowing) animals that may be mistaken for large worms. Some are also tailless.

The list below is based on American Museum of Natural History Amphibian Species of the World
Online Reference version 5.4.
The common names for families are adopted from the AMNH list with additional proposed names in inverted commas.
New species are being described on a regular basis so the species counts will increase continually.

Note: due to the confusion over the higher level phylogeny of the Anura the families represented in the O'Shea photo library are listed in alphabetical rather than systematic order. This page contains those families beginning with A, up to H.
Note: these list may be incomplete as there are many anuran slides from earlier expeditions which remain to be catalogued.

Legend:
Photographic locality. Wherever possible precidence is given to wild specimens from known localitions, wherein the 'photographic locality' relates to the origin of the photographed specimens, rather than the taxon's entire range. The only exceptions are indicated by (captive) or (preserved specimen). These are either specimens photographed in captivity, where the locality given is a general distribution for the taxon, or preserved specimens photographed as biological voucher specimens.

Column D1. Digitized images - the bulk of the library consists of 35mm transparencies (mostly Kodachrome or Velvia) which are gradually being digitized [using Nikon CoolScan 4000 or Plustek OpticFilm 7600i] and stored on hard disc. 'X' indicates that digitized images are available, '[]' indicates that the transparencies of this taxon have yet to be digitized.

Column D2. Digital images - since 2005 digital images have also been taken [using Canon EOS 30D, 40D or 7D]. 'X' indicates that digital images are available in addition to digitized images for this taxon.

CAECILIIDAE
TAILLESS CAECILIANS

The Caeciliidae contains three subfamilies, a total of 125 species and 29 genera. Two subfamilies are represented by single species.

Caeciliidae Tailless caecilians
SAO TOME CAECILIAN Schistometopum thomense Sao Tome, Gulf of Guinea	RIO CAUCA CAECILIAN Typhlonectes natans Amazonia
click on images to enlarge

ICHTHYOPHIIDAE
ASIAN TAILED CAECILIANS

The Ichthyophiidae contains three genera and 50 species with a single species represented in the photo library.

Ichthyophidiidae Asian tailed caecilians

PATTIPOLA FISH CAECILIAN Ichthyophis orthoplicatus Gampola, Sri Lanka

click on images to enlarge