Here's strange and wondrous news. Apparently, a professor dedicated to the mysteries of a strange type of amphibian called "caecilians" was in Makaibari earlier this year. He was looking for a specific type of 'caecilian' indigenous to the Darjeeling/Sikkim area. The monsoons had not quite begun and he left without seeing any. After his departure, the rains came and lo and behold, these rare amphibians were spotted at Makaibari! As Rajah Banerjee, owner of Makaibari, said, "They were popping up everywhere".
They resemble earthworms and are amphibians without limbs. They stay underground and are, therfore, hard to find and difficult to study. Their reproduce in the most unusual of ways and best left for the Discovery channel. The world's media has descended on Makaibari and this little story has now been covered on all the national media in India and even on the BBC network worldwide. Click on this link to watch the clip: Rare amphibian found in India
University students from all over India, and soon the rest of the world, I'm sure, have descended upon Makaibari to study this strange creature and to observe an eco-system which has been preserved that has allowed the emergence of this creature after 150 years. This particular species is Icohthyophis Skkimmennis.
