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

Oscaecilia ochrocephala (Cope, 1866)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Gymnophiona > Family: Caeciliidae > Genus: Oscaecilia > Species: Oscaecilia ochrocephala

Coecilia ochrocephala Cope, 1866, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 18: 132. Holotype: USNM 29764, according to Cochran, 1961, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 220: 3, although Cope notes only a specimen at the ANSP. Type locality: "Panama"; restricted to the "Atlantic side of the Isthmus of Panama" by Taylor, 1968, Caecilians of the World: 611.

Herpele ochrocephala — Cope, 1885 "1884", Proc. Am. Philos. Soc., 22: 171.

Caecilia sabogae Barbour, 1906, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 46: 228. Syntypes: MCZ 2425 (2 specimens), by original designation. Type locality: "Saboga Island", Panama. Synonymy by Dunn, 1928, Proc. New England Zool. Club, 10: 73.

Oscaecilia ochrocephala — Taylor, 1968, Caecilians of the World: 598, 611.

English Names

Yellow-headed Caecilian (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 24).

Distribution

Extreme northwestern Colombia (northern Chocó and western Antioquia) to central Panama, sea level to 610 m elevation. See comment.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Colombia, Panama

Comment

See Taylor, 1969, Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 48: 283-284, and Savage and Wake, 2001, Copeia, 2001: 57, for brief accounts. Lynch, 2000 "1999", Rev. Acad. Colomb. Cienc. Exact. Fis. Nat., 23: 330, suggested that the Colombian record for this species might be in error. Nieto-Roman and Wake, 2012, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 881: 1-5, provided a review, noted ambiguity in the identification of Colombian specimens nominally of this species, and suggested that the species may be restricted to Panama. Köhler, 2011, Amph. Cent. Am.: 34–35, compared this species with the others of Central America and provided maps, and photographs. This species was compared with other Central American ones by Köhler, 2011, Amph. Cent. Am.: 34–35. Fernández-Roldán, Lynch, and Bocanumenth, 2022, Rev. Latinoam. Herpetol., 5: 25–31, provided records from Darien and Urabá Antioqueño, Colombia, and discussed diagnostic features that separate this species from Oscaecilia polyzona as well as providing a dot map for both species in Colombia.

External links:

Please note: these links will take you to external websites not affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History. We are not responsible for their content.

For access to general information see Wikipedia
For additional sources of general information from other websites search Google
For access to relevant technical literature search Google Scholar
For images search CalPhoto Images and Google Images
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 access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.