Ichthyophiidae Taylor, 1968

Class: Amphibia > Order: Gymnophiona > Family: Ichthyophiidae
57 species

Epicria Fitzinger, 1843, Syst. Rept.: 34. Type genus: Epicrium Wagler, 1828. Suppressed for purposes of priority but not homonymy in favor of Ichthyophiidae Taylor, 1968, by Opinion 1604, Anonymous, 1990, Bull. Zool. Nomencl., 47: 166.

Epicrina Bonaparte, 1845, Specchio Gen. Sist. Erpetol. Anfibiol. Ittiolog.: 6. Type genus: Epicrium Wagler, 1828.

Epicriina — Bonaparte, 1850, Conspect. Syst. Herpetol. Amph.: 1 p.

Ichthyophiidae Taylor, 1968, Caecilians of the World: 46. Type genus: Ichthyophis Fitzinger, 1826. Placed on Official List of Family-group Names in Zoology by Opinion 1604, Anonymous, 1990, Bull. Zool. Nomencl., 47: 166-167.

Uraeotyphlinae Nussbaum, 1979, Occas. Pap. Mus. Zool. Univ. Michigan, 687: 14. Type genus: Uraeotyphlus Peters, 1880 "1879". Synonymy by Frost, Grant, Faivovich, Bain, Haas, Haddad, de Sá, Channing, Wilkinson, Donnellan, Raxworthy, Campbell, Blotto, Moler, Drewes, Nussbaum, Lynch, Green, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 297: 166.

Epicriidae — Dubois, 1984, Alytes, 3: 113; Lescure, Renous, and Gasc, 1986, Mem. Soc. Zool. France, 43: 154.

Epicrioides — Lescure, Renous, and Gasc, 1986, Mem. Soc. Zool. France, 43: 154. Hyperfamily.

Epicrioidea — Lescure, Renous, and Gasc, 1986, Mem. Soc. Zool. France, 43: 154. Superfamily.

Epicrioidae — Lescure, Renous, and Gasc, 1986, Mem. Soc. Zool. France, 43: 154. Epifamily.

Epicriinae — Lescure, Renous, and Gasc, 1986, Mem. Soc. Zool. France, 43: 154. Subfamily.

Epicriilae — Lescure, Renous, and Gasc, 1986, Mem. Soc. Zool. France, 43: 154. Epifamily.

Uraeotyphlilae — Lescure, Renous, and Gasc, 1986, Mem. Soc. Zool. France, 43: 158. Infrafamily.

Uraeotyphlidae — Duellman and Trueb, 1986, Biol. Amph.: 510.

Epicriumidae — Anonymous, 1993, Bull. Zool. Nomencl., 50: 261–263. Opinion 1749, emendation conserving name.

Ichthyophidinae — Wollenberg and Measey, 2009, J. Evol. Biol., 22: 1051. Incorrect subsequent spelling.

Uraeotyphlidinae — Wollenberg and Measey, 2009, J. Evol. Biol., 22: 1051. Incorrect subsequent spelling.

Ichthyophioidea — Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 272. Superfamily. 

Common Names

Fish Caecilians (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 25).

Indian Caecilians (Uraeotyphlidae [no longer recognized]: Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 26).

Old World Caecilians (Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 75).

Asian Tailed Caecilians (Vitt and Caldwell, 2009, Herpetology, 3rd Ed.: 415).

Kerala Caecilians (Uraeotyphlidae [no longer recognized]: Vitt and Caldwell, 2009, Herpetology, 3rd Ed.: 418).

Distribution

Philippines and India to southern China, Thailand, and the Malayan Archipelago to Wallace's Line.

Comment

Nussbaum, 1979, Occas. Pap. Mus. Zool. Univ. Michigan, 687: 27, considered Ichthyophiidae transitional between Rhinatrematidae and other caecilian families; Ichthyophiinae and Uraeotyphlinae were included by Nussbaum in Ichthyophiidae on the basis of patristic similarity, but he suggested that Uraeotyphlinae was the sister-group of the higher caecilians (at that time named Scolecomorphidae, Caeciliaidae, and Typhlonectidae) and that Ichthyophiinae was the sister-taxon of a group composed of Uraeotyphlinae  + higher caecilians. Subsequently Wilkinson and Nussbaum, 1996, Copeia, 1996: 550–562, Wilkinson, 1997, Biol. Rev. Cambridge Philos. Soc., 72: 423–470, and Wilkinson, Sheps, Oommen, and Cohen, 2002, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 23: 401–407, provided evidence that Uraeotyphlidae and Ichthyophiidae are sister taxa. Gower, Kupfer, Oommen, Himstedt, Nussbaum, Loader, Presswell, Müller, Krishna, Boistel, and Wilkinson, 2002, Proc. R. Soc. London, Ser. B, Biol. Sci., 269: 1563–1569, suggested on the basis of mtDNA sequence study that Uraeotyphlidae might be imbedded within Ichthyophiidae; this was subsequently confirmed by Frost, Grant, Faivovich, Bain, Haas, Haddad, de Sá, Channing, Wilkinson, Donnellan, Raxworthy, Campbell, Blotto, Moler, Drewes, Nussbaum, Lynch, Green, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 297: 113, who made the synonymy to render a monophyletic Ichthyophiidae (although they suggested that minimally Ichthyophis is paraphyletic with respect to Uraeotyphlus. Wilkinson and Nussbaum, 2006, In Exbrayat (ed.), Reprod. Biol. Phylog. Gymnophiona: 39–78, discussed evidence for this taxon. Nussbaum and Wilkinson, 1989, Herpetol. Monogr., 3: 31, suggested that Caudacaecilia and Ichthyophis might both be polyphyletic inasmuch as these taxa are based solely on single characters of known variability. See comment under Caudacaecilia. Matsui, Nishikawa, Sudin, and Mohamed, 2006, Copeia, 2006: 256–260, discussed the dubious distinction of Caudacaecilia and Ichthyophis as well. See comment under Ichthyophis malabarensis. Zhang and Wake, 2009, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 53: 479–491, further corroborated the paraphyly of Ichthyophiidae in the older narrower sense with respect to nominal Uraeotyphlidae. Blackburn and Wake, 2011, In Zhang (ed.), Zootaxa, 3148: 39–55, briefly reviewed the taxonomic history of this taxon. San Mauro, Gower, Cotton, Zardoya, Wilkinson, and Massingham, 2012, Syst. Biol., 61: 661–674, confirmed the placement for Ichthyophiidae as the sister of all other caecilians, excluding Rhinatrematidae. Maddin, Russell, and Anderson, 2012, Zool. J. Linn. Soc., 166: 160–201, reported on the braincase of the family and confirmed its phylogenetic placement. Vitt and Caldwell, 2014, Herpetology, 4th Ed., provided a summary of range, diagnosis, life history, and taxonomy. See account of Chinese ichthyophiids by Fei and Ye, 2016, Amph. China, 1: 140–145. See Kamei, 2017, Das (ed.), Diversity Ecol. Amph. India: 49–72, for an overview of the species of northeastern India. Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 1–738, resurrected Uraeotyphlidae on the basis of a different sample of species than that which provided a signal of paraphyly of Ichthyophis to Uraeotyphlus in the study of Frost, Grant, Faivovich, Bain, Haas, Haddad, de Sá, Channing, Wilkinson, Donnellan, Raxworthy, Campbell, Blotto, Moler, Drewes, Nussbaum, Lynch, Green, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 297: 1–370. 

Contained taxa (57 sp.):

Ichthyophis Fitzinger, 1826 (49 sp.)
Uraeotyphlus Peters, 1880 (8 sp.)

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