Chinese giant salamander is at least five species — all nearly extinct

The world’s largest amphibian has become vanishingly rare in the wild, a new study has found. The Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus) can reach lengths of more than 1.8 meters (6 feet), taller than many humans, making them hard to miss. Yet scientists who spent four years surveying the salamander’s preferred river habitats across 97 counties in China spotted only 24 individuals at four sites. In all, it took them 16 weeks on an average to detect one salamander, the team of Chinese and Western researchers report in a new study published in Current Biology. Compare this with the time it took researchers to spot the two other giant salamander species in past surveys: a little more than an hour to spot one Japanese giant salamander (Andrias japonicus) in Japan, and a little over two hours to spot an individual hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) in the eastern U.S. The dearth of detections despite such an extensive survey suggests that the once-widespread Chinese giant salamander has now vanished from much of its range, the researchers say. The species’ slide toward extinction is largely because the creatures are illegally collected from the wild for farming as a luxury food item. Millions of Chinese giant salamanders are being farmed today. And most breeding individuals in these farms have either been caught from the wild, or are first-generation offspring of wild-caught salamanders. “The overexploitation of these incredible animals for human consumption has had a catastrophic effect on their numbers in the wild over an amazingly short time span,”…

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