Since before the age of dinosaurs it has burrowed unbothered beneath the monsoon-soaked soils of remote northeast India — unknown to science and mistaken by villagers as a deadly, miniature snake.

But this legless amphibian’s time in obscurity has ended, thanks to an intrepid team of biologists led by University of Delhi professor Sathyabhama Das Biju. Over five years of digging through forest beds in the rain, the team has identified an entirely new family of amphibians — called chikilidae — endemic to the region but with ancient links to Africa.

Their discovery, published Wednesday in a journal of the Royal Society of London, gives yet more evidence that India is a hotbed of amphibian life with habitats worth protecting against the country’s industry-heavy development agenda.

It also gives exciting new evidence in the study of prehistoric species migration, as well as evolutionary paths influenced by continental shift.

“This is a major hotspot of biological diversity, but one of the least explored,” Biju said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We hope this new family will show the importance of funding research in the area. We need to know what we have, so we can know what to save.”

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