Singapore Caecilian

Ichthyophis singaporensis, the Singapore caecilian, is a species of amphibian in the family Ichthyophiidae endemic to Singapore. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, rivers, intermittent rivers and former plantations. Currently, it is now restricted to the Central Catchment Nature Reserve. It has not been sighted for almost fifty years, and is possibly extinct. It might have existed in south Peninsular Malaysia in historic times.

William Montgomerie was the island's first surgeon as well as Raffles's physician. The specimen was first identified as a species already known to science and sat amongst the unimaginable multitude of other specimens at what is today the Natural History Museum in London. Over a century after it was first collected, Edward Harrison Taylor studied this and other specimens of caecilians, which are legless amphibians that resemble snakes. Taylor concluded that this was a new species and named it Ichthyophis singaporensis from whence the specimen originated. It is commonly known as the Singapore caecilian.