Caecilians are limbless, burrowing amphibians that most people have never heard of. Their underground lives make them invisible to conservation attention, but they face threats from habitat destruction and collection.
Caecilians are among the most data-poor vertebrate groups — basic information on population sizes, distribution, and ecology is lacking for most species. This invisibility means conservation and welfare threats go undetected and unaddressed. Habitat destruction through tropical deforestation and agricultural conversion of soil habitats affects caecilians directly but without the monitoring infrastructure to document impact. The pet trade collects them as curiosities for which care information is almost entirely absent, resulting in rapid death in captivity.