Chinese giant salamanders are the largest amphibians in the world.
Amazing Facts About the Chinese Giant Salamander
- They have very poor eyesight, to detect their prey they sense the vibrations in the water.
- They spend their entire lives under water, but don’t have gills. They absorb oxygen through their skin.
- At breeding time, the females lay between 400-500 eggs which the males look after until they hatch.
- They used to be common, but are now critically endangered due to habitat loss and excessive hunting.
- In 1726 a Swiss physician described a fossil of a Chinese giant salamander and assumed that it was the fossil of a human being that survived the Great Flood, naming it Homo diluvii testis (“witness of the Great Flood”).