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

Caecilia tentaculata Linnaeus, 1758

Class: Amphibia > Order: Gymnophiona > Family: Caeciliidae > Genus: Caecilia > Species: Caecilia tentaculata

Caecilia tentaculata Linnaeus, 1758, Syst. Nat., Ed. 10, 1: 229. Type(s): NHRM (one specimen) according to Andersson, 1899, Bih. K. Svenska Vetensk. Akad. Handl., 24 (IV, art. 6): 6; lost, according to Nussbaum and Hoogmoed, 1979, Zool. Meded., Leiden, 54: 224 but reported as NHRM 162 by museum records. Types may include by indication animals figured by other authors: "Amoenit. Acad. [= Linnaeus, 1749, Amoenitates Acad., 1:] I. P. 489, t. 17. f. 2", "Mus. Ad. Fr. [presumably Linnaeus, 1754, Mus. Adophi Friderici, 1:] I. P. 19 t. 5. f. 2.". Type locality: "America". (See Linnaeus, 1754, Mus. Adophi Friderici, 1 for image of type.)

Caecilia ibiara Daudin, 1803 "An. XI", Hist. Nat. Gen. Part. Rept., 7: 427-429. Substitute name for Caecilia tentaculata.

Caecilia (Caecilia) tentaculata — Van der Hoeven, 1833, Handb. Dierkd., 2: 303.

Caecilia lenticulata Tschudi, 1838, Classif. Batr.: 90. Error for Caecilia tentaculata Linnaeus, 1758.

Amphiumophis andicola Werner, 1901, Abh. Ber. Zool. Anthropol. Ethnograph. Mus. Dresden, 9: 14. Holotype: MTKD D1689, destroyed in WWII. Type locality: "Chanchamayo", Peru. Synonymy by Dunn, 1942, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 91: 499; provisional synonymy by Taylor, 1968, Caecilians of the World: 443.

Caecilia pressula Taylor, 1968, Caecilians of the World: 431. Holotype: AMNH 49475, by original designation. Type locality: "Marudi Mountains, British Guiana [=Guyana]". Synonymy by Wilkinson, 2020, Herpetol. J., 30: 227.

English Names

Bearded Caecilia (Gray, 1831, in Cuvier, Animal Kingdom (Griffith), 9—Appendix: 110).

White-bellied Caecilian (Wood, 1863, Illust. Nat. Hist., 3: 187).

Linnaeus' Caecilian (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 23).

Distribution

The greater part of wet-forested South America east of the Andes: Brazil (states of Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Ceará, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, and Pará), Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela; expected in Amazonian Bolivia.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, Venezuela

Likely/Controversially Present: Bolivia

Comment

See discussion by Savage and Wake, 2001, Copeia, 2001: 52-64, regarding the dubius application of this name and related systematic issues. De la Riva, Köhler, Lötters, and Reichle, 2000, Rev. Esp. Herpetol., 14: 58, and Köhler, 2000, Bonn. Zool. Monogr., 48: 69, consider this species possibly to occur in Bolivia. Lescure and Marty, 2000, Collect. Patrimoines Nat., Paris, 45: 292-293, provided a photo and brief account for French Guiana (who also reported it as present in Panama). Lynch, 2000 "1999", Rev. Acad. Colomb. Cienc. Exact. Fis. Nat., 23: 328-329, commented on systematics and distribution. Taylor and Peters, 1974, Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 50: 343, commented on two Ecuadorian specimens. Faria and Mott, 2011, Herpetol. Notes, 4: 53-56, suggested that specimens identified as this species from Mato Grosso, Brazil, represent an unnamed species. Maciel and Hoogmoed, 2011, Zootaxa, 2984: 15-18, provided a detailed account and a spot map, and noted the possible non-diagnosability of Caecilia albiventris, Caecilia guntheri, and Caecilia volcani from this taxon. Bernarde, Machado, and Turci, 2011, Biota Neotrop., 11: 117–144, reported specimens from Reserva Extrativista Riozinho da Liberdade, Acre, Brazil. See account for Suriname population by Ouboter and Jairam, 2012, Amph. Suriname: 322-323. Borges-Nojosa, Castro, Lima, Bezerra, Maciel, and Harris, Salamandra, 53: 429–434, extended the range to Ceará, Brazil, and discussed biogeography. See Barrio-Amorós, Rojas-Runjaic, and Señaris, 2019, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 13 (1: e180): 133, for comments on range and literature. Señaris and Rojas-Runjaic, 2020, in Rull and Carnaval (eds.), Neotrop. Divers. Patterns Process.: 571–632, commented on range and conservation status in the Venezuelan Guayana. See brief account for the Manu region, Peru, by Villacampa-Ortega, Serrano-Rojas, and Whitworth, 2017, Amph. Manu Learning Cent.: 260–261. Wilkinson, 2020, Herpetol. J., 30: 227–229, discussed the taxonomic status of Caecilia pressula and made the synonymy. Crnobrna, Santa-Cruz Farfan, Gallegos, López-Rojas, Llanqui, Panduro Pisco, and Kelsen Arbaiza, 2023, Check List, 19: 449, provided a record from Ucayali Department, central-eastern Peru.

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To search the NIH genetic sequence database, see GenBank
For additional information see AmphibiaWeb report
For information on conservation status and distribution see the IUCN Redlist
For information on distribution, habitat, and conservation see the Map of Life
For related information on conservation and images as well as observations see iNaturalist
For additional information specific to Ecuador see FaunaWebEcuador: Anfibios del Ecuador
For access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.