Gross-looking new species found in India

For as long as anyone can remember, farmers in northeastern India have been attacking these weird-looking animals on the rare occasions that they surfaced from their underground homes, believing that they were under siege from deadly, miniature snakes. Today, however, an Indian scientist named Sathyabhama Das Biju has announced their true identity: They're legless amphibians, cousins to frogs and salamanders. Christened the "chikiilidae," they are under siege from rampant, and natural-habitat-depleting, development in India. As Bijui told the Associated Press, "We don't even know what we're losing."

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