Motherhood can be tough, as it requires giving up a tremendous amount of yourself to your offspring. Caecilians take this a bit too literally, as the newborns get their nutrients by eating specialized skin right off of the mother's body. These worm-like, burrowing creatures primarily live in tropical locations and can reach up to 1.5 meters in length.
It takes two to three hours for a male and female caecilians to mate. A quarter of the species lay eggs, while the rest will have live birth. Those that develop within the mother aren't fed through an umbilical cord like humans, but will actually use specialized teeth to eat the lining out of the mother.
However, the species that lay eggs aren't necessarily getting off easily. While amphibians may not make milk for newborns like mammals, these caecilians do start to grow a specialized layer of skin that is available for the offspring to eat. The newly hatched babies have teeth which make it easy for them to rip off the flesh that provides them with all the nutrients they need to increase their weight tenfold within the first week of life.
Visually, the process is fairly unsettling. Check it out here:
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