You’re probably familiar with frogs and salamanders, but there is a third group of modern amphibians, the strangest of them all: the worm-like caecilians. In this episode, we’ll explore the many bizarre anatomical features of caecilians, from their tentacled faces to their abrupt hind ends. Then we’ll explore the entire caecilian fossil record (it won’t take long) and tackle the much-discussed mystery of how this fascinating lineage of amphibians got started.

In the news: weird marsupial eyes, long dinosaur necks, and kangaroo rats. Also a retraction!

Time markers: Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00 News: 00:05:00 Main discussion, Part 1: 00:43:30 Main discussion, Part 2: 01:22:30 Patron question: 01:59:30

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The Intro and Outro music is “On the Origin of Species” by Protodome. More music like this at http://ocremix.org.

Musical Interludes are "Professor Umlaut" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/