[1] The discovery that this was a separate lineage resulted from genetic analyses of specimens collected during about 250 soil-digging expeditions over five years that covered every Northeast Indian state.

[2] A team of biologists led by University of Delhi herpetologist Sathyabhama Das Biju described the family as representing as many as seven species apparently endemic to the region.

[1] In September 2012, some of these species were also found in Lawachara National Park in the Sylhet region of northeastern Bangladesh.

Until this discovery, only nine families of caecilians were known from across the wet tropical regions of Southeast Asia, India, Sri Lanka, parts of East and West Africa, the Seychelles, Central America and northern and eastern parts of South America.

[6] From morphological and DNA analyses, the researchers concluded the new family had evolved independently of other caecilians since the time of the dinosaurs.