Andrias japonicus in Tottori Prefecture, Japan

[cland]

Hi all,

I was fortunate enough to travel to Japan last year to help in the field with a population demography and ecology study of A. japonicus, the Japanese giant salamander. I have been meaning to add some photos for a while, and I just kept putting it off. I need to get out my old computer to get to the bulk of my shots, but started a Facebook group about these awesome salamanders, which include some of the better images, as well as some taken by other folks in the field in Tottori prefecture, Japan. If you have Facebook, check the group out, and add any Andrias photos or comments of encouragement if you would like; Sumio Okada, the researcher I was working with, is a member and is excited about raising awareness outside of Japan.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=43689425729

Thanks, I'll add some more photos at some point.

Best,
Mike

 

[Kerry1968]

Great pictures of a fascinating creature, thank you.

 

[bewilderbeast]

jealous...

 

[John]

From the Guidelines for posting to this area of the forum:

• We want to see what you've seen, but preferably we'd like to see it here on caudata.org - otherwise we should just have a links section for field herping, right?
• When you post a link to another forum you set a bad example for new users because they think it's fine to just post links.

The moderator who approved this thread shouldn't have done so in its current form.

 

[John]

Here's an actual photo of a young adult Andrias japonicus here on caudata.org:

 

[monkeyfrogman28]

I joined it.

Look at its tiny eyes, Its nostrils are allmost bigger than its eyes. Just imagine long long ago, this guy was the shrimp back long ago.

 

[cland]

Hi John,

My apologies; I didn't intend to break the rules. Here are some other photos from the trip. I was there for a month, going mostly on night time river walks in waders. We would net any Andrias that we saw, and I would help record the measurements, as well as work the pump used to expel their stomach contents for cataloging.

The first two photos are Hynobiids that we found in a small mountain stream near Wakasa Cho, Tottori Prefecture. The third is a large male Andrias japonicus measuring 36.6 inches and weighing 17 pounds. The next is Sumio checking for a PIT tag in a juvenile captured during filming for a Japanese documentary. The next is the juvenile in the measurement tube. Then next is the juvenile squirming upside down in the tube before checking on snout vent length. The next is excellent (but very rare) Andrias habitat. Most Andrias streams and rivers have been damned. The next is a juvenile just released back into the river. The next is me, having netted a juvenile. The last is a very robust male, just over 3 feet; I don't remember how much he weighed, sorry.

 

[cland]

Continued; I wasn't sure if I could add more than three photos at once.

 

[John]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for coming back and posting these photos. I'm actually dismayed that you say "large male ... 36.6 inches" - if that's what constitutes a large male in the wild now then things are in dire straits - the animals in San Antonio Zoo, Texas, US, are larger than that and they're still young.

 

[cland]

These two photos are from the Tottori Prefectural museum. The Andrias in the case is the heaviest on record. It was captured in 1945 and kept as a pond pet until its death in 2003! It was 56.3 inches long, and weighed 97.6 pounds.

 

[cland]

Hi John,

I was surprised as well to see that the two Andrias in the Kyoto zoo were considerably larger than what we were finding in the wild. While Sumio has found larger males throughout the study, the males that are ostensibly taking the role of den master in their fragmented river segments tend to be about that size. Also worrying was the high percentage of human garbage found in the stomach contents of most of the salamanders screened near human habitation (which is pretty much everywhere). There were plastic bags, aluminum foil, cabbage. Pretty sad.

Best,
Mike

 

[John]

I think you've just described the whole of the populated world to some degree. I don't hold much hope for amphibians over the next few decades.

 

[radtad]

That is sad, but true

 

[Yahilles]

Whoa, nice pictures. The Andrias larva was shot in aquarium, yeah?
On picture miniatures of Hynobiids i thought it was Plethodon cinereus and P. glutinosus on photos, when i maximized them i saw it was Hynobius and Onychodactylus species.

 

[cland]

Hi Janusz,

Actually, the larvae photo was taken in the wild by Sumio, if the picture you refer to is the one from the Facebook group. I just noticed that Sumio recently posted on the group wall, and that around early August the salamanders were getting ready to breed. Cross your fingers!

Best,
Mike