Vietnamese and foreign scientists have identified a new species of limbless amphibians in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park in the central province of Quang Binh, the park’s management board announced Tuesday. 

The new species called Ichthyophis chaloensis sp. nov. was first spotted during a 2011 field trip by local experts in a forest in the park, news website VnExpress reported. 

Ichthyophis is a genus of caecilians (limbless amphibians, sometimes called the Asian caecilians) found in Southeast Asia, the southern Philippines, and the western Indo-Australian Archipelago. 

The newly found Ichthyophis species brings the number of amphibian species in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park to 51. 

It differs from its unstriped congeners in a combination of morphological and molecular traits.