Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
Single word	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Ichthyophis sikkimensis Taylor, 1960

Class: Amphibia > Order: Gymnophiona > Family: Ichthyophiidae > Genus: Ichthyophis > Species: Ichthyophis sikkimensis

Ichthyophis sikkimensis Taylor, 1960, Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 40: 91–94. Holotype: CAS 64216, by original designation. Type locality: "Darjeeling, [West Bengal,] India".

Common Names

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

Sikkimese Caecilian (Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 67; Schleich, Anders, and Kästle, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 80; Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 135; Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 135).

Sikkim Striped Caecilian (Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Deepak, and Kulkarni, 2023, Fauna India Checklist, vers. 5.0 : 16).

Distribution

Sikkim and Darjeeling region of West Bengal, northern India; also Ilam District, eastern Nepal, and Palpa District of central Nepal; likely to extend into western Bhutan.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: India, Nepal

Likely/Controversially Present: Bhutan

Comment

See accounts by Dutta, 1997, Amph. India Sri Lanka: 28; Pillai and Ravichandran, 1999, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, Occas. Pap., 172: 49–52; and Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 192–195. Anders, Kästle, Rai, and Schleich, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 340–348, provided an account, figure, and map, for the Nepal population. Dutta, 2003 "2002", Hamadryad, 27: 156, doubted the record from Kerala, suggesting a misidentification. Sarkar, Biswas, and Ray, 1992, State Fauna Ser., 3: 95, provided a brief account for West Bengal, India. Das and Dutta, 2007, Hamadryad, 31: 154–181, noted no larval descriptions in the literature. Kamei, Wilkinson, Gower, and Biju, 2009, Zootaxa, 2267: 26–42, mapped the locality in Darjeeling, West Bengal, India. See Shah and Tiwari, 2004, Herpetofauna Nepal: 83, for brief account for Nepal. Wangyal, 2014, J. Bhutan Ecol. Soc., 1: 30, anticipated the discovery of this species in Bhutan. Gower, Giri, Kamei, Oommen, Khot, and Wilkinson, 2017, Herpetol. J., 27: 181–187, found that putative records from southern India were based on misidentified specimens. See Kamei, 2017, Das (ed.), Diversity Ecol. Amph. India: 49–72, for a review of this species. Not mentioned by Khatiwada, Wang, Zhao, Xie, and Jiang, 2021, Asian Herpetol. Res., 12: 1–35, who discussed Nepal amphibians. Nepali and Singh, 2021, Reptiles & Amphibians, 28: 86–88, provided new records from the Palpa District of central Nepal. Mondal, Bhattacharya, and Deuti, 2022, Hamadryad, 39: 71–75, commented on larval morphology.

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For additional information see AmphibiaWeb report
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For information on distribution, habitat, and conservation see the Map of Life
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