News Life

This is the first egg-laying amphibian found to feed its babies ‘milk’

Like mammals, these ringed caecilians make a nutrient-rich fluid for their young

A photograph a ringed caecilian female with gray skin, and her pink-skinned babies wrapped up in her tail

Ringed caecilian females (one shown, with smaller, pink young) feed their babies a fat-rich fluid similar to mammal milk that’s made in the reproductive tract.

Carlos Jared

By Jake Buehler

In the middle of the night in a humid coastal rainforest, a litter of pink, hairless babies snuggle with their mother. They stir and squeak for milk, their mother obliges, and they are sated.