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The Chinese giant salamander (lat. Andrias davidianus) is the largest amphibian and tailed amphibian on our planet. The body length of this rare animal can reach 180 cm and weight 70 kg. In 2014, three dozen babies were born at the Prague Zoo. Prior to this, only 5 individuals lived in the United States in the zoos of Atlanta, Cincinnati and St. Louis and 4 more in Rotterdam and Dresden.
The largest Chinese salamander living in captivity is the male Carlo.
Now he lives in Prague. He is approximately 40 years old. He weighs more than 35 kg, has already grown to 160 cm and continues to grow further. His fellow tribesmen Schmitz and Natalie keep him company. If his health does not fail, then in a few years he will be able to break the record that belonged to the deceased amphibian from the Chinese province of Hunan. The record holder was 180 cm in length and 65 kg of live weight.
Spreading
The species Andrias davidianus is distributed in the western and southwestern regions of China. The largest relict populations live in the provinces of Sichuan, Guangdong, Qinghai, Jiangsu and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
They inhabit cold water bodies in mountainous areas at altitudes from 100 to 1500 m above sea level. Most often found in streams and small rivers, slightly less often in lakes and ponds. In Qinghai province there is an isolated population at an altitude of 4200 m.
Amphibians prefer clean running water and natural depressions at the bottom of reservoirs, used as shelters. The most attractive conditions for them are found in the basins of the Yellow, Yangtze and Pearl rivers.
Amphibians were introduced to Taiwan and Japan (Kyoto Prefecture), where they produced hybrid offspring with. They differ from local animals by having a less rounded muzzle, darker coloring and a slightly larger tail.
Behavior
Chinese salamanders feed mainly on insects, crustaceans, snails, worms and other small species of tailed and tailless amphibians. On occasion, they love to feast on small fish and do not disdain carrion. Due to their slowness, they swim slowly, so they often move along the bottom on their four limbs. Hiding near the stones, they patiently wait for prey swimming directly into their wide mouth.
In their stomachs, undigested remains of water shrews (Chimarrogale styani) were also found, possibly accidentally ingested for their lunch. Cannibalism flourishes among them. Adults actively eat the younger generation.
Representatives of this species have poor eyesight Therefore, during hunting, they rely on a special sensory organ located on the sides along the entire body from head to tail and detecting the slightest vibrations in the aquatic environment.
Activity manifests itself with the onset of twilight and until approximately midnight; during the day, this creature sleeps sweetly in its shelter. Appetite is greatly reduced at temperatures above 20°C, and at 28°C feeding stops completely.
A temperature of 35°C is fatal.
Each animal has its own home area. Males occupy about 40, and females 30 square meters area. They protect their lands and do not allow strangers into them.
Reproduction
Chinese giant salamanders become sexually mature around the tenth year of life, but when favorable conditions sometimes at the age of 5 years, upon reaching a body length of 40-50 cm. The mating season takes place from July to September, when the water warms up to 20°C. Every year, amphibians choose a new place to procreate.
Males leave their shelters first and go in search of a suitable area for spawning, which consists of underwater holes, a pile of stones and sand at the bottom. Large individuals drive out their young competitors and occupy the best spawning grounds.
After a few days, the females arrive. Gallant gentlemen circle around them for a long time and lure them into their nest. Usually it is located in a natural depression. In it, the female lays two egg cords, each of which contains up to 500 eggs with a diameter of 7-8 mm. The male fertilizes them, after which the pair breaks up. The female can lay eggs in several more places and return home with a sense of accomplishment.
Males remain near the clutch and vigilantly guard it from voracious cannibal fellow tribesmen, fish and predators.
The larvae, about 30 mm long, hatch after two months and immediately begin to feed heavily. The happy father, having waited for the birth of his offspring, sails away.
When the larvae grow to 250 mm, their gills begin to disappear. Metamorphosis takes place entirely in the aquatic environment, but juveniles can periodically climb to the shore.
There are many farms in China where giant salamanders are raised. Most of the specimens living on them were caught young in wildlife, and not born in captivity. In 2011, according to official data, about 2.6 million giant amphibians were raised in Shaanxi province alone in the Qinling mountain range. This great amount, considering that in the wild the local population does not exceed 50 thousand individuals.
The bulk of the livestock is intended for consumption. A minority of grown creatures are released into the wild and enter processing plants to obtain medicinal drugs used in folk medicine mainly for the treatment of anemia. For the release of their pets, farmers receive monetary compensation from the state.
In the 50-60s of the last century, the species was at the stage of complete destruction due to the destruction of its natural habitat and mass famine in China. Poaching became one of the main opportunities for peasants to escape from starvation.
The state program for the protection of giant salamanders appeared only in the 80s. To preserve them, 14 reservations were created, but poaching in them does not stop to this day. The fine for a killed animal is about 50 yuan, while at the same time, restaurants buy its meat from poachers for 2000-2500 yuan per 1 kg. It is considered in the Celestial Empire an exquisite delicacy that improves health and prolongs life, so moneybags are willing to pay any money for it.
Farmed amphibians often get sick and are susceptible to infectious diseases. They are valued much lower and are not in such great demand as their wild counterparts.
Description
The average body length of adults reaches 100 cm. Very smooth skin is dark brown, greenish-brown or black-brown. The back is covered with large and small dark spots. The abdomen is lighter, light gray, with black spots.
In the head area there are characteristic swellings located in pairs. The nostrils are small and almost invisible. On the sides of the massive and big head there are small round eyes without eyelids. The mouth occupies almost half of it.
Front and hind legs short, have 4 fingers. They are connected to each other by a swimming membrane. There are horny commissures at the ends of the fingers.
The Chinese giant salamander lives up to 60 years in captivity. Life expectancy under natural conditions is unknown.
Externally, the salamander resembles a huge lizard, being its “relative”. This is a classic endemic to the Japanese islands, that is, it lives only there in the wild. This type is one of the largest salamanders on Earth.
Description of the species
This species of salamander was discovered in the 18th century. In 1820, it was first discovered and described by a German scientist named Siebold during his scientific activity in Japan. The length of the animal's body reaches one and a half meters including the tail. The weight of an adult salamander is about 35 kilograms.
The shape of the animal's body is not distinguished by grace, as, for example, in lizards. It is slightly flattened, distinguished by a large head and a tail compressed in a vertical plane. Small and juvenile salamanders have gills that disappear when they reach sexual maturity.
The salamander has a very slow metabolism. This circumstance allows her for a long time do without food, and also survive in conditions of insufficient food supply. Poor vision has led to an increase in other senses. Giant salamanders have acute hearing and a good sense of smell.
Another one interesting feature salamanders - the ability to regenerate tissue. This term refers to the restoration of tissues and even entire organs, if they were lost for any reason. The most striking and familiar example to many is the growth of a new tail in lizards to replace what they easily and voluntarily leave behind when trying to catch them.
Lifestyle
This type of salamander lives exclusively in water and is active at night. For a comfortable living, the animal needs a current, so salamanders often settle in fast mountain streams and rivers. The water temperature is also important - the lower the better.
The salamander's diet consists of fish and various crustaceans. In addition, it quite often eats small amphibians and aquatic insects.
The giant salamander lays small eggs, up to 7 millimeters in diameter. A special hole dug at a depth of 1-3 meters is used as a “nest”. In one clutch, as a rule, there are several hundred eggs that need constant updating surrounding aquatic environment. The male is responsible for creating an artificial current, using his tail to periodically disperse the water in the area of the clutch.
Eggs mature for almost a month and a half. The small salamanders that are born are larvae no more than 30 millimeters long. They breathe through gills and are able to move independently.
Salamander and man
Despite the unsightly appearance, this species of salamander has nutritional value. Salamander meat is tender and has a pleasant taste. It is actively consumed by the inhabitants of Japan, considered a delicacy.
As usual, uncontrolled hunting of these animals has led to a sharp reduction in their numbers, and today salamanders are raised “for food” on special farms. In the wild, the population is cause for concern. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has classified the species as Near Threatened. This means that in the absence of measures to support and create optimal living conditions, salamanders may begin to die out.
Today, the number of salamanders is not large, but quite stable. They live off the coast Japanese island Honshu, as well as off the islands of Shikoku and Kyushu.
The largest salamander in the world reaches a length of 1.5−1.8 m. Its weight is about 60−65 kilograms. This amazing animal is found in the reservoirs of Japan and China. It is impossible to say exactly how long these live magnificent creatures, since in their natural habitat their age can reach five decades. Researchers suggest that the gigantic salamander can be 2-3 times its standard weight and size.
There are two main types: the Japanese giant salamander and the Chinese. They belong to the cryptobranch family. External differences occur only in the location of growths on the head.
Animals have rather undeveloped vision. That is why they feed on various small living creatures such as frogs and fish, determining their location solely using their sense of smell. In addition, the animal has a slow metabolism, which allows it to not feel the need for food for a long time.
Scientists suggest that the salamander could have existed back in the time of dinosaurs. But on this moment the species is in danger of extinction due to massive hunting of animals and excessive pollution environment, in which these magnificent salamanders are accustomed to exist. Local residents actively destroy animals in order to feast on them. delicious meat. However, they do not understand how beautiful creature they take lives. Because of this, the giant salamander is reducing its population. For this reason, it was listed in the Red Book.
GIANT SALAMANDER (Andrias), a genus of tailed amphibians of the cryptobranch family, includes two species:
Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus)
Japanese giant salamander (Andrias japonicus)
These are tailed amphibians of the cryptobranch family.
The Japanese giant salamander and the Chinese giant salamander differ in the location of the tubercles on the head and their habitat.
Today it is the largest amphibian.
It reaches 160 cm in length, weighs up to 180 kg and can live up to 150 years.
But we met them only when they were under 55 years old.
Dark brown with dark blurry spots. With this coloration, the salamander is invisible against the background of rocky river bottoms.
Torso and big head flattened, tail - almost half of the entire length,
looks like an oar-shaped oar.
The front paws have 4 toes, and the hind paws have 5 toes. And the paws are short and thick
The eyes have no eyelids and are set wide apart, while the nostrils, on the contrary, are very close together.
The skin is soft, warty, forms longitudinal folds on the sides of the body; the same folds border the posterior edges of the legs. The giant salamander absorbs oxygen through its skin. Having folds of skin on the sides of the body serves to increase the surface area of the body, which helps absorb even more oxygen.
Salamanders have poor eyesight.
Leads an aquatic lifestyle, active at dusk and at night, prefers cold, fast-flowing mountain streams and rivers with fast currents, damp caves and underground rivers.
Spends the day under washed-out shores or large rocks in the western part of the island of Honshu (north of Gifu Prefecture) and on the islands of Shikoku and Kyushu (Oita Prefecture), choosing altitudes from 300 to 1000 m above sea level.
Adults tolerate low temperatures relatively well.
For example, a case is described when a gigantic salamander calmly survived the drop in water temperature to zero in January 1838.
In the aquarium of the Moscow Zoo, even a crust of ice appeared on the water surface during cold nights.
The salamander has poor eyesight, which is compensated by an excellent sense of smell, with which it finds frogs, fish, crustaceans, and insects, slowly moving along the river bottom.
The salamander obtains food by hiding at the bottom of the river, with a sharp lunge of its head it captures and holds the victim with its jaws with small teeth.
The gigantic salamander can both seek out prey, navigating with the help of smell,
and lie in wait for her
The salamander's metabolism is slow, which allows it long time go without food.
Salamanders have a slow metabolism; they can go without food for weeks. It feeds on fish and small amphibians, crustaceans and insects.
It is also capable of long-term fasting - there are known cases when in captivity salamanders did not feed for two months without visible harm to themselves., and seize sudden movement heads to the side. In captivity, cases of cannibalism (eating their own kind) have been reported.
Japanese giant salamanders begin breeding at the end of August, when they gather in small groups near their nests. Males are very aggressive towards their opponents, and often many die later due to injuries received in mating fights.
The female lays several hundred eggs, 6-7 mm in size, resembling long rosaries, in horizontal burrows under water at a depth of 3 meters, which is absolutely not typical for amphibians.
To moisten the clutch, the eggs are constantly lubricated with mucus, and one of the parents (usually the male) has to fan them with his tail, providing a continuous flow of fresh air.
Caviar matures in 60-70 days at a water temperature of 12 °C. . The larvae are about 30 mm long, have three pairs of external gills, limb buds and a long tail with a wide fin fold.
Small salamanders are constantly in the water for up to a year and a half, until their lungs are finally formed and they can go to land. But the salamander can also breathe through its skin. At the same time, the giant salamander reaches sexual maturity.
Although giant salamanders have no natural enemies, their numbers are declining as a result of local populations hunting them as food and the loss of their habitat due to deforestation.
The meat of the gigantic salamander is quite tasty and edible, which has led to a reduction in the animal’s population. Thus, currently in Japan, the salamander is practically not found in nature, but is bred in special nurseries.
At the beginning and middle of the last century in the markets of the cities of Osako and Kyoto local residents medium-sized salamanders were sold for 12 - 24 guilders.
At the same time, Chinese and Japanese doctors advised the use of boiled meat and broth from giant salamanders as an anti-infective agent in the treatment of consumption and diseases of the digestive system.
However, due to the rarity of the animal, even then “medicines” from it cost a lot of money. As a result of overfishing, giant salamanders are now under protection: they are included in the Red Book of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and in Appendix II of the International Convention on Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITEC). The catch of the Japanese salamander from nature is extremely limited, although it is quite successfully bred on Japanese farms.
This unique amphibian lived alongside dinosaurs millions of years ago and managed to survive and adapt to new living conditions.
The species was first described and cataloged in the 1820s, when one of the salamanders was captured by the German naturalist Philipp Franz von Siebold, then working in Japan and living on the island of Dejima in Nagasaki Prefecture.
He sent the captured salamander to the city of Leiden (Netherlands).
Probably, the extinct species of giant salamander (Andrias scheuchzeri or Salamandra scheuchzeri), described in the 18th century from Miocene deposits of Germany, belongs to the same species.
The size and appearance of the skeleton of a gigantic salamander from the Miocene deposits of Germany so captivated the imagination of the Viennese physician A. Scheichzer that in 1724 he described it as Homo diluvitestis (“man-witness” global flood"), apparently deciding that skeletal materials are all that remains of biblical hero who was unable to escape Noah's Ark.
Only Georges Cuvier, the famous zoologist at the turn of the XYII and XYIII centuries, classified this “man” as an amphibian.
The first gigantic salamanders appeared in European aquariums in mid-18th century century.
One of them to Kharkov from trip around the world On the ship "Gaydamak" in 1877, the ship's doctor P.N. Savchenko brought it. While the animal was still alive, the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences agreed to purchase this individual for 300 rubles after its death.
The gigantic salamanders first came to Moscow at the request of the famous domestic zoologist, director of the Moscow State University Zoo Museum A. P. Bogdanov, for whom the Russian envoy to the Japanese court and minister plenipotentiary K. V. Struve organized the delivery of two copies in 1886.
One of them lived in the Moscow Zoo, and the other, who died on the way from Japan to St. Petersburg on the cruiser "Europe", was brought to the Moscow State University Zoo Museum and is now on display.
