Human parents are used to making sacrifices for the good of their children, but it seems that worms have taken the boundaries of parental care one step further. The offspring of the caecilian, a legless amphibian resembling an earthworm, from the Taita Mountains in Kenya, literally eat the skin off their mother's back. They even have specially developed dentures to enable them to eat the nutrient-rich skin with ease. Quentin Cooper is joined by scientists to discuss this seemingly unthinkable sacrifice and the further habits of this curious caecilian.