Rare Animals of India is a unique book that presents the biological and ecological accounts of the least known animal species of India in one comprehensive volume. The book gives comprehensive ecological accounts supported with data tables on rare and specific animal species of India and discusses the basis for their rarity and their conservation. It includes information about the Indian Gharial (Gavialis gangeticus) the endangered Forest Owlet (Heteroglaux blewitti), the Bengal Marsh Mongoose, Snow Leopards and many more. Readers are guided through several chapters each detailing a specific kind of animal, some of them being on the list of endangered species. With over 150 color illustrations, this intriguing reference will be of immense interest to zoologists, ecologists, naturalists and conservation biologists as well as general readers across the world interested in studying such rare animals found in the length and breadth of the Indian region.

"Determining the higher level relationships of the modern amphibian order Gymnophiona (caecilians) poses a number of methodological problems. A cladistic methodology is outlined by which the phylogenetic relationships of this group can be determined objectively. Among the possible sister groups analyzed, which include dissorophid temnospondyls, aistopods, nectrideans, lysorophoids, microsaurs, anurans and urodeles, the microsaurs of the families Gymnarthridae and Goniorhynchidae are the most plausible sister group of caecilians, based on cranial osteology. Hence, the three modern orders of amphibians, caecilians, anurans and urodeles, do not constitute a monophyletic assemblage exclusive of all other groups. Ingroup analysis indicates that the Ichthyophiidae is the most primitive living caecilian family. The cladistic analysis suggests that features of the unique jaw apparatus define two groups of caecilians which diverged, phylogenetically, early in the group's history. Morphometric analysis reveals that elements of the jaw apparatus compose a functional suite of features. Aspects of the development, function, and significance of the jaw to miniaturization of the caecilian skull are inferred from the morphometric analysis."--