A relative of the salamander that lives without eyes, ears and lungs (6 photos + 1 video)

Eiselt's worm (Atretochoana eiselti) looks like a freshly stuffed sausage. And this creature has also received a decent number of indecent nicknames such as the dick-conda due to its obvious resemblance to the genital organ. What is this amazing creature?





Still, despite the similarity with snakes, the caecilian is an inhabitant of the Amazon Valley; it is related to frogs, newts, toads, salamanders and other amphibians, and not reptiles. They lost their paws in the process of evolution. More precisely, for caecilians this is more of an involution, because how could one voluntarily give up the use of limbs? Apparently, there was a reason: so that they would not stick out from the layer of silt or rotten foliage, where these creatures sleep in anticipation of prey. Well, how they doze: dozing is a normal state for them, since caecilians don’t have eyes.



By the way, apparently out of a desire to do nothing during involution, they took another big step back - as if they crawled back into the water element. Inhabitants of water bodies use gills for breathing. And the caecilians had quite full-fledged lungs.





But due to lack of use, they atrophied and left the funny little body forever. Thickets as unnecessary and nostrils. But the problem is that the lungs are gone, but the gills have not appeared. And these sausage-shaped lazy people have to breathe with their skin, that is, with the entire surface of their body.



Currently, this extraordinary mole rat is the largest representative of tetrapods. But if the loss of the nostrils can at least be explained, then where did the eyes and ears go?





Zoologists do not yet have exact answers to this question. And while they are thinking, Eiselt’s caecilian is quite successfully leading the lifestyle of a quite successful predator. As if mocking the laws of nature and opening its rather fanged mouth in silent mockery: “Are you weak?”