Japanese Giant Salamander

• Males compete aggressively for spawning pits under the riverbed, defending them fiercely as "den masters".
• It eats fish, insects, crustaceans and small mammals.
• It lives in cold, exceptionally clean rivers and streams of southern Japan.
• fisiologíaIt can live more than 50 years and breathes mainly through the folds of its skin, its lungs doing very little.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (amphibian)

Habitat and environment

Cold, exceptionally clean rivers and streams of south-western Japan

Birth weight

The larva ~100 mm long at a year old

Size at birth

A tiny larva on hatching, with gills it loses by around 3 years old

Sexual maturity

5 years (the male at 30 cm, the female at 40 cm long)

Gestation / incubation

12-15 weeks (84-105 days) after fertilisation

Litter / clutch size

400 to 600 eggs per clutch, laid in a string like a strand of beads

Life expectancy in captivity

A documented record of 52 years in captivity (in Amsterdam), with anecdotal estimates of 80-100

Sources consulted: Amphibian Ark Husbandry Guidelines; Animal Diversity Web; Encyclopedia of Life; AnAge (genomics.senescence.info); The Animal Facts; Animalia.bio; Animal Files; Wikipedia (Japanese giant salamander, Andrias)

The pins mark the parks where its presence is documented.