Japanese giant salamander. Chinese giant salamander

The giant salamander is common in mountain rivers central part Eastern China and in Japan. This is the largest modern amphibian reaching 160 cm in length. The large head and body are flattened. The laterally compressed paddle-shaped tail is slightly less than half the total length. The short thick front paws have 4 and the hind paws have 5 toes.

Warty soft skin forms longitudinal folds on the sides of the body; the same folds border the posterior edges of the legs. Small, eyelidless eyes are widely spaced; on the contrary, the nostrils lying in front are very close together. The color of the upper side of the body is gray-brown with darker blurry spots; the underside is light gray with black spots. The gigantic salamander lives in the middle reaches of fast mountain rivers and streams.

She spends everything under large stones or washed out overhanging banks. daylight hours days. It feeds at night and searches for food, consisting of frogs, crustaceans, fish and insects, using its sense of smell, moving slowly along the bottom. Hiding, it often lies in wait for prey and grabs it with a quick lateral movement of its head, after which it holds the victim with jaws armed with small teeth. In August - September, the female lays several hundred relatively small eggs with a diameter of 6-7 mm.

The masonry in the form of clearly shaped cords is placed under water, at a depth of 1-3m in a horizontal hole on the shore. The male protects the eggs by moving his tail Better conditions aeration. The development of eggs at a temperature of about 12° lasts 60-70 days. The hatched larvae, about 30 mm long, have three pairs of external gills, limb buds and a long tail with a wide lower fin fold.

The larvae lose their external gills at a body length of about 20 cm, which they apparently reach after a year. The meat of gigantic salamanders is tasty and eaten, so they are persecuted everywhere and they have become rare animals.

In captivity, where the water is usually not sufficiently saturated with oxygen, giant salamanders rise to the surface several times an hour and capture air, using it to breathe through the mucous membrane of the mouth. The remains of the famous giant salamander, described back in the 18th century. from the Miocene deposits of Germany by Scheuchzer under the name “man witnessing the flood”, in all likelihood, belong to the same genus.

What is this? Filming the movie "Alien 5"? Photoshop? No. This is quite an earthly animal. I didn’t believe it right away. Those who remember from the last blog already know, but I’ll tell you for new friends. Reading the details...

According to local old-timers, this impressive-sized specimen seems like a mere tadpole compared to the salamanders that were once found in the area around the city.

A 17th-century legend tells of a salamander, or, in local terms, khanzaki, 10 meters long, which ruled the roads and ate horses and cows.

Then there was a hero named Mitsui Hikoshiro, who allowed the dragon to swallow himself along with his faithful sword, which he used, killing the monster.

But it turned out that the dragon had cast a spell on the city. There was a crop failure, people began to die strange death, the hero himself died.

Very soon, the townspeople realized that the spirit of the dragon was roaming the country, and they erected a temple in the city, in which the Khanzaks began to make sacrifices.

However, scientists have their own interest in amphibians. Firstly, this is a surprisingly archaic creature that rightfully claims to be a living fossil. Moreover, this salamander turned out to be surprisingly resistant to the effects of the chytrid fungus, which has killed many amphibians from Australia to the Andes.

IN science Center in the city of Maniwa, 800 km west of Tokyo, people flock to see the unique amphibian.

We are talking about a giant salamander, which is almost 1.7 meters long.

Japanese giant salamander (lat. Andrias japonicus) By appearance resembles another species - the Chinese giant salamander (lat. Andras davidianus), and differs only in the location of the tubercles on the head. Average length body - more than 1 meter, can reach a length of up to 1.44 meters and a weight of up to 25 kg.

Gigantic salamanders have a large flattened head with eyes devoid of eyelids, a body with a noticeable glenoacetobular (between the limbs of one side of the body) skin fold and tuberous skin, a laterally compressed paddle-shaped tail, short and thick limbs with four toes on the front paws and five on the hind paws.

Size and appearance of the skeleton giant salamander from the Miocene deposits of Germany so captured the imagination of the Viennese physician A. Scheichzer that in 1724 he described it as Homo diluvitestis (“man - witness of the global flood”), apparently deciding that the skeletal materials were all that remained of the biblical hero, not who managed to escape on 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 Japanese giant salamander lives in cold mountain rivers and streams with fast current, spending 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 relatively well low temperatures. For example, a case is described when a gigantic salamander calmly survived a drop in water temperature to zero mark in January 1838. In the aquarium of the Moscow Zoo, during cold nights, even a crust of ice appeared on the water surface.

The giant salamander is active at dusk and at night, when it crawls out to hunt. They serve her as food small fish and amphibians, crustaceans and insects. It is also capable of long-term fasting - there are cases when in captivity salamanders did not feed for two months without visible harm to themselves.

The gigantic salamander can both seek out prey, navigating by sense of smell, and lie in wait for it, hiding, and grab it with a sharp movement of its head to the side. In captivity, cases of cannibalism (eating their own kind) have been reported.

IN natural conditions at a depth of 1 - 3 m in a coastal underwater burrow in August - September, the female lays several hundred eggs with a diameter of 6 - 7 mm in the form of clear-shaped cords or beads. The male, showing care for the offspring in a specific way, protects the clutch and, with movements of his tail, creates a flow of water around it, thus increasing the aeration of the eggs. At a water temperature of 12 - 13 ° C, egg development lasts 2 - 2.5 months.

The gills disappear in the larvae probably after a year (according to other sources, in the third year of life), when their body length reaches 20 cm. In summer, adults molt almost monthly.

The meat of giant salamanders has gastronomic significance. At the beginning and middle of the last century in the markets of the cities of Osako and Kyoto local residents sold average size salamanders 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: included in the Red Book International Union Nature Conservation (IUCN) and in Annex II International Convention on trade in wild flora and fauna (CITEC). Catch Japanese salamander from nature is extremely limited, although it is quite successfully bred on Japanese farms.

Salamanders have poor eyesight; they rely on other senses to determine their position in space and the position of other objects.

The maximum recorded lifespan of the giant salamander is 55 years.

This type of salamander is also capable of regenerating, which is often noted in this genus of amphibians.

Here's an interesting video...

"The skeleton of this creature is almost identical to fossil remains that are 30 million years old," says Takeyoshi Tohimoto, director of the Hanzaki Institute near Hyogo.

Hanzaki salamander (Andriasjaponicus) has only two modern related species- This Chinese giant salamander (A. Davidianus ) , which is so close to the Japanese that it can interbreed with it, and the much smaller salamander Cryptobranchus alleganiensis , native to the southeastern United States.

"They are considered very primitive creatures, partly because they are the only salamanders that reproduce through external fertilization, like fish," says Don Church, an amphibian specialist at environmental organization Conservation International.

Typically, these salamanders sit quietly under the river bank or hide in the leaves, waiting for prey to appear, which they grab with their powerful jaws.

A feat worthy of a great warrior

When the chytrid fungus appeared in Asia ten years ago, no one could have imagined that Japanese salamanders were to blame.

But last year a group of researchers from the Institute environmental problems Japan, headed by Koichi Goka, published an article from which it followed that this fungus settled exclusively on the skin of giant salamanders, which did not suffer from it in any way.

This discovery could help study the biology of this fungus, which kills millions of amphibians around the world.

It turned out that bacteria live on the skin of Japanese salamanders that can resist the peptides secreted by the fungus.

If, on this basis, it is possible to isolate substances that can reproduce this effect, scientists will be able to obtain a universal antifungal agent that will save millions of frogs and toads.

And this will be a feat worthy of heroism Japanese warrior Mitsui Hikoshiro.

Gigantic salamanders live in mountain rivers and streams with cold running water. Inhabits western part O. Hondo north to Gifu Prefecture. Also known from a small island. Kyushu. Lives in mountain rivers with clean cold water at altitudes from 300 to 1000 m.a.s.l. u. m.

They spend most of their time in burrows and underwater niches under banks overhanging the water or in deep holes among stones, sunken tree trunks, stumps and snags. It is not by chance that this salamander is called gigantic. Its body can be up to 160 cm long and even longer, weighing up to 28-30 kg. This is a whole pig! But you can catch a piglet with your bare hands, but it’s impossible to take a salamander; even if you grab it, you won’t be able to hold it. Her entire body is covered with a layer of mucus, and she slips out easily. In addition, large salamanders have a large physical strength, their bites are also dangerous: the animal’s mouth is armed with many small and sharp teeth, with the help of which the salamander holds prey, intercepts it and swallows it whole.

The activity of the giant salamander is crepuscular and nocturnal. Salamanders emerge from the water onto the shores of reservoirs very rarely, usually after floods caused by heavy rains.

Initially, the salamander appears to be just a sunken stump of a tree. Its huge head and body seem to be flattened on top, its long tail is compressed from the sides, its legs are short and thick, the skin of its body is warty and folded on the sides, which makes its contours blurry. The eyes are like beads, have no eyelids and are widely spaced, with almost no protrusion. The nostrils, located at the end of the muzzle, are very close together.

The color of the upper part of the body of the gigantic salamander is dark brown with dark gray streaks and very dark shapeless spots. The belly is gray with dark blurry spots and small specks. All this camouflages the salamander very well among a variety of bottom objects, stones and aquatic vegetation. The salamander either searches for its prey, slowly moving along the bottom of the reservoir, or lies in wait, lying on the bottom and not showing any movements. But as soon as a fish, frog, insect or crayfish approaches, there is a sharp, lightning-fast movement of the head - and the prey is in the teeth. It feeds on fish, amphibians and other small animals.

The Japanese giant salamander molts 4-5 times a year. The cuticle that lags behind during molting slides off the entire body in shreds, flakes and is partially eaten by the molting animal. During molting, which lasts several days, the salamander makes frequent movements with its body, as if vibrating it. This achieves washing away the lagging areas of the shed cuticle from the surface of the body.

During breeding, salamanders live in pairs. The male not only guards the nest, but also helps with better aeration. With its strong tail, it periodically stirs the water and does not allow it to stagnate: the embryos need oxygen.

In August-September, the female lays several hundred small eggs with a diameter of 6-7 mm. The clutch is usually placed in a coastal burrow at a depth of 1-3 m. The eggs are protected by the male, who uses his tail to create a current of water for better aeration of the clutch.

The development of eggs lasts 60-80 days depending on the water temperature. This duration of development compared to the development of eggs of many other amphibians (2-8 days) is explained by the fact that the eggs of giant salamanders develop at a temperature of +12-15° C. warm water salamanders do not survive: they somehow endure up to +18° C, and above that they begin to suffocate. The larvae emerging from the eggs turn into adult forms in about 11-12 months. The length of the larvae emerging from the eggs is about 30 mm. Salamanders grow quickly, and they have a good appetite.

In Japan, simply put, the gigantic salamander was eaten, in China... they are finishing it, and if the persecution of gourmets does not stop, then in the very near future the gigantic salamander - the largest amphibian animal of our time - will bitterly have to be included in the black list of animals that have disappeared forever from the face of the Earth. The giant salamander is registered in the International Red Book as an endangered animal. But here's the problem. This salamander has very tasty meat, which is why people pursue it.

In the old days, hunting salamanders was a type of sport hunting, but now this hunting has become illegal and turned into ordinary poaching for the pleasure of tasting a delicious dish. The Japanese tried to breed giant salamanders in artificial conditions, and their many years of attempts were crowned with success. imitate natural environment The habitat of these animals turned out to be difficult. Special nurseries with deep flow channels were created. The eggs laid by the salamanders were removed and placed in an incubator, where they developed.

Currently, the species is under strict protection. Catching and export are extremely limited. In Japan it is successfully bred on farms.

But I remembered who she reminds me of! Yes, that's it!

Nowadays the most major representative among amphibians is the Japanese giant salamander. It can reach 150 centimeters in length and weigh up to 180 kilograms. In addition to their impressive size, they are famous for their delicious meat, which is very highly regarded in Japan and China. The salamander was practically threatened with such a human taste preference complete disappearance.

But people came to their senses in time and began to do everything possible to at least slightly restore the population of this rare species. Special farms and nurseries for breeding and keeping giant salamanders have become expensive. This is not an easy task, because creating a natural habitat for them is very difficult.

IN natural conditions the gigantic salamander is found exclusively on the Japanese islands: Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu. It can only exist in a flowing environment cold water mountain rivers The salamander digs itself a deep 2-3 meter hole in the banks above the water or finds underwater niches among stones or sunken trees.

The size of the Japanese salamander is amazing. Its average length is about 1 meter, and such a “baby” weighs about 25 kilograms. Maximum length- 160 centimeters.

The head, body and tail of the salamander have a flattened shape. The length of its tail is almost half of the total body length. There are 4 toes on the front paws, and 5 on the hind paws. To protect the skin, their body is covered with mucus.

Coloring may vary, ranging from delicate orange color and ending with dark brown with dark blurry spots (the most common option).

Her wide-set eyes have poor vision, so she relies on other senses to determine her position in space.

You need to be careful with salamanders. They are very strong and can bite painfully. Their mouth is armed with many sharp and small teeth, with which they easily hold caught prey.

The salamander finds its food - fish, frogs, crustaceans, insects and small amphibians - using its acute sense of smell. Moving slowly along the bottom, it sniffs out a future victim or ambushes it. Salamanders have a slow metabolism, so they are quite for a long time can do without food.

4-5 times a year they molt, lasting several days. During this period, the salamander behaves a little strangely. Periodically, she begins to “tremble.” This vibration helps the cuticle peel off from the body. The remaining skin is partially eaten by the former owner.

The breeding season for salamanders occurs in August-September. The female lays her eggs in a deep burrow under water, which is not typical for amphibians. The eggs are small, 6-7 mm. Their ripening lasts 60-70 days. Throughout this entire period, male salamanders show paternal care over the babies. They are constantly near the clutch and, with the help of their tail, create a constant flow of water, which provides the eggs with oxygen.

The hatched larvae reach 3 centimeters in length, they already have the rudiments of limbs, a long tail with a wide fin fold and 3 pairs of external gills. They live in water for up to one and a half years. During this time, their lungs are formed, which allows them to go to land and begin their “adult life.”

Salamanders are nocturnal animals. Their main activity occurs at night or in the evening.

June 14th, 2009

The giant salamander (giant salamander) is a genus of tailed amphibians of the cryptobranch family and is represented by two species: the Japanese giant salamander (Andrias japonicus) and the Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus), which differ in the location of the tubercles on the head and their habitat. True to its name, the Chinese giant salamander lives in the mountain rivers of the central part of Eastern China, and the Japanese giant salamander lives in the rivers of Japan.

Today it is the largest amphibian, which can reach 160 cm in length, weigh up to 180 kg and can live up to 150 years, although officially registered maximum age The giant salamander is 55 years old.

This unique amphibian lived alongside dinosaurs millions of years ago and managed to survive and adapt to new living conditions. The gigantic salamander leads an aquatic lifestyle, is active at dusk and at night, prefers cold, fast-flowing mountain streams and rivers, damp caves and underground rivers.

Dark brown coloring with darker blurry spots makes the salamander invisible against the background rocky bottom rec. The body and large head of the salamander are flattened, the tail, which makes up almost half of the entire length, is paddle-shaped, the front legs have 4 fingers and the hind legs have 5 fingers, the eyes without eyelids are set wide apart, and the nostrils are very close together.

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 salamander's metabolism is slow, which allows it long time go without food.

In August-September, salamanders begin their breeding season. 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. Caviar matures in 60-70 days at a water temperature of 12 °C. In this case, as a rule, the male constantly provides aeration of the eggs, creating a flow of water with his tail. 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 comes puberty giant salamander.

The meat of the gigantic salamander is quite tasty and edible, which has led to a reduction in the animal’s population and its inclusion in the Red Book as a species in danger of extinction. Thus, currently in Japan, the salamander is practically not found in nature, but is bred in special nurseries.

One of the largest salamanders in the world.

Scull Andrias japonicus

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).

In Japan, salamander meat is eaten and considered a delicacy. Breeding of giant salamanders on farms is practiced.

The species is classified as Near Threatened by the IUCN Species Survival Commission.

Spreading

Description

The Japanese giant salamander in appearance resembles another species - the Chinese giant salamander (lat. Andrias davidianus), and differs only in the location of the tubercles on the head. The total length of adult salamanders ranges from 30 to 150 cm with a body length from 20 to 90 cm. The average length of animals in nature is 60-70 cm. The weight of mature animals ranges from 1.5 to 35 kg. The largest specimen found in wildlife, weighed 26.3 kg with a length of 136 cm

The salamander's body has a flattened shape and is colored in dark brown, brown and black tones. The head is large and wide, the eyes are widely spaced. The gills disappear after the salamander reaches sexual maturity. The tail is compressed laterally. The limbs are short and thick. The front paws have four toes, the hind paws have five.

Salamanders have poor eyesight; they rely on other senses to determine their position in space and the position of other objects. Salamanders have a slow metabolism; they can go without food for weeks.

The maximum recorded lifespan of the giant salamander is 55 years.

Salamanders of this species are capable of regeneration, which is also found in other species of the genus.

Lifestyle

Basically, it leads an aquatic lifestyle, where it hunts and reproduces, and at the same time feels very comfortable on land, although it moves much slower than in water. Breathing is mainly cutaneous. Active at dusk and at night. Prefers cold, fast-flowing mountain streams and rivers. It feeds on fish and small amphibians, crustaceans and insects. Hunting looks like suction and, as a rule, food is not chewed, but is digested internally.

The breeding season is August-September.

The female lays eggs in a hole dug under the shore at a depth of 1-3 m. The number of eggs is several hundred, the egg diameter is 6-7 mm. The male protects the eggs by creating a current of water with his tail to improve aeration of the clutch. The incubation period at a temperature of 12-13°C lasts 60-70 days. The length of newborn larvae is about 30 mm.

Notes

1. Ananyeva N. B., Borkin L. Ya., Darevsky I. S., Orlov N. L. Five-language dictionary of animal names. Amphibians and reptiles. Latin, Russian, English, German, French. / under the general editorship of academician. V. E. Sokolova. - M.: Rus. lang., 1988. - P. 20. - 10,500 copies.
2. - ISBN 5-200-00232-X. Kuzmin S. L. Amphibians former USSR