Decades of giant salamander protection: why could good intentions backfire?

Today's subjectthe Chinese giant salamander, has a household nickname we all know well -baby fish。

Chinese giant salamander. Image: Daniel Heuclin / photoshot.com

Hiding the gills

The Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus) belongs to the order Caudata, suborder Cryptobranchoidea, family Cryptobranchidae, genus Andrias, and among living caudatans it isrelatively primitivespecies. The fossil record of the family Cryptobranchidae can be traced back to the Late Jurassic, 160 million years ago; today only 2 genera and 3 species survive in this family, and besides the Chinese giant salamander there are the genus Andrias'sJapanese giant salamander(Andrias japonicus) and the genus Cryptobranchus'shellbender（Cryptobranchus alleganiensis）。

The word Cryptobranchidae comes from two ancient Greek words: "krypto" meaning "hidden," and "branch" literally meaning branch, actually referring to thefeathery external gills。

used by caudatan larvae to breathe in water. Adorable giant salamander larvae, in which their pink feathery external gills can be seen. Image: zslsites.org

The namer of the Chinese giant salamander, émile Blanchard, dedicated its specific epithet "davidianus" to the French priest Armand David, who collected a large number of animal and plant specimens during his missionary work in China and shipped them to Europe for scholars to study. Besides the Chinese giant salamander, those exported to the West through Armand David's hands also include the familiar giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), Père David's deer (Elaphurus davidianus) and dove tree (Davidia involucrata), among others.

The giant of amphibians

The Chinese giant salamander has a flat head and body, very small eyes thatlack eyelids, short and stout limbs, and a short, laterally flattened tail; its skin is smooth, with paired tubercles, and its flanks havelongitudinal skin folds; its body color is rather variable, mostly dark brown, yellowish brown, etc., often accompanied by black or reddish-brown spots, quite similar to the texture and color of pebbles in the environment, making it an excellentcryptic coloration。

Image: Wernher Krutein / photovalet.com

The Chinese giant salamander isthe largest living amphibian, generally reaching sexual maturity when it grows to 40 cm, but like other lower vertebrates, the giant salamander's body size also keeps increasing with age, usually exceeding 1 m. The largest individual ever recorded had a total length of 1.8 m and weighed over 50 kg.

A child and a Chinese giant salamander looking at each other across a wall. Image: Cyril Ruoso / mindenpictures

May to August each year is the breeding season of the Chinese giant salamander; a female salamander can lay as many as more than 300 eggs at a time, and the outer layer of the eggs is wrapped in a transparent gelatinous layer,the eggs linked one by one like prayer beads, with a length that can reach several meters.

After laying eggs, the female salamander leaves at once, and nextthe male salamander not only has to complete the most critical fertilization work, but also take on the heavy responsibility of guarding the egg strings; some dutiful male salamanders will even wrap the egg strings around their bodies to prevent predators from sharing the meal. The fertilized eggs hatch into young salamanders after 52 to 68 days, and the newly hatched giant salamander babies show clustering behavior; only when they are able to live independently will the male salamander leave.

Chinese giant salamander eggs linked into a string of prayer beads. Image: ivanli / caudata.org

Caudatans have well-developed skin glands, and many species also secrete venom that turns predators' stomachs, with a few species' toxicity being able to kill. Although the giant salamander does not secrete venom,when encountering enemies its skin glands will secrete large amounts of mucus, and predators will usually give up the hunt because of this.

Even a "baby" will bite when provoked

The reason the Chinese giant salamander has the folk name "baby fish" is not only because its appearance resembles a chubby black baby with a tiger-like head, but even more because theircries sound exactly like a baby's wailing。

The ancient people of our country discovered this characteristic very early; the earliest written record of the giant salamander appears in a passage in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, "Classic of the Northern Mountains": "Two hundred li further northeast, there is a mountain called Longhou, with no grass or trees, and much gold and jade. The Juejue River rises there and flows east into the river. In it there are many mermen, whose shape is like a ? fish, with four legs, and whose sound is like a baby; eating it prevents dementia." The "mermen" and "?[tí] fish" in this passage both refer to the giant salamander. In the more than two thousand years afterward, the giant salamander also appeared under names such as "crying fish," "dog fish," and "foot fish" in classics such as the Commentary on the Water Classic, the Collected Explanations, and the Compendium of Materia Medica.

A Chinese giant salamander with a reddish body color among pebbles. Image: Michael Wai Neng Lau / Kadoorie Farm & Botanic Garden

So many folk names also show from another side that giant salamanders were numerous in the past and had a relatively wide distribution range. According to records, the distribution of wild giant salamanders starts from the Taihang Mountains in the north, reaches the Nanling Mountains in the south, begins at the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the west, and extends through the Yangtze River Delta in the east, making it an out-and-out widespread species among caudatans. Theylive in water throughout their lives, dwelling in shallow streams or underground karst caves, favoring shade and fearing heat, usually coming out at night to be active and rarely going ashore.

A Chinese giant salamander in the water. Image: Daniel Heuclin / photoshot.com

Although the giant salamander looks silly and cute, do not be fooled by its "playing the pig to eat the tiger" appearance. The giant salamanderhas a mouth full of fine, dense teeth, and when it senses prey passing nearby it swallows it in one bite. Their main prey are mollusks, crustaceans, fish and frogs, etc., but if they encounter birds or small mammals that have fallen into the water, they naturally will not let them go either.

Legend says that in western Hunan there was once a tragedy in which a woman put her baby beside a pool while washing clothes, and in the blink of an eye the child was dragged into the water and eaten by a giant salamander. Legends are, after all, legends, and their truth can no longer be verified, buttoday cases of many giant salamander farmers being bitten are everywhere。

Besides dense teeth, the giant salamander also has a large mouth. Image: chimelong.com

The wrong path of protection

Since ancient times, giant salamanders have often been captured as food or medicine, butthe greatest threat to their survival is still habitat destruction. It is estimated that since the 1950s, the population of wild Chinese giant salamanders has declined by more than 80%. The IUCN Red List assessed its endangerment level asCritically Endangered (CR), and in 1988 our country also listed it as anational second-class protected animal。

As the bottleneck in artificial breeding technology for the Chinese giant salamander was broken through, this once rare animal gradually escaped the brink of extinction and even began to enter the dining tables of ordinary people. Many protected areas also buy young salamanders from giant salamander farms forrestocking and release, with numbers already exceeding 100,000 individuals. The protection situation of the giant salamander seems to be excellent.

Farms need to regularly release a certain proportion of captive giant salamanders into the wild, as one of the protection measures to maintain the population of wild giant salamanders. Image: zslsites.org

A recent study on the population genetics of giant salamanders shows thatthe genetic diversity of the Chinese giant salamander is not singular; current data support that the Chinese giant salamander population contains at least 5 independent evolutionary lineages. In other words,our country may have 5 different species of giant salamanders。

This was originally good news that would greatly increase species diversity, yet upon careful thought it leaves one in even deeper worry.The formerly unregulated introduction, breeding and release have already greatly damaged the genetic diversity of giant salamanders, and different species of giant salamanders have become a "hodgepodge" under human "protection,"today "purebred" giant salamanders are already hard to find in the wild, so the protection of giant salamanders has fallen into an awkward situation.

People cannot help asking, have the protection efforts of the past few decades been a case of good intentions doing bad things?

Just last month, scholars from China, the UK and Japan published a study; from 2013 to 2016 they surveyed 97 counties in China and found only 24 wild Chinese giant salamanders. Image: Ken Lucas / ardea.com

The plight of the Chinese giant salamander reminds me of an extinct bird.The giant grebe[pì tī] (Podilymbus gigas), also known as the Atitlán grebe, this flightless waterbirdwas distributed only in Lake Atitlán in Guatemala. In the 1960s, the introduction of largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) into the lake caused competition for food, leading to a decline in population. Misfortunes never come singly; in the following years it successively suffered dramatic environmental changes such as lake shrinkage and destruction of breeding grounds, and this local endemic species was quickly pushed to the brink of extinction.

In 1975, a conservation project for the giant grebe was introduced, and related protection work unfolded at a feverish pace. A few years later, people observed that the number of giant grebes had increased significantly. Just when people were overjoyed and thought this species was about to leave the brink of extinction, an awkward scene appeared. One day, researchers approached a small group of giant grebes by boat, and after being startled they unexpectedly ran rapidly across the water and flew away. Only then did people realize thatall along they had been protecting a group of invasive pied-billed grebes(Podilymbus podiceps), whilethe giant grebe they truly needed to protect was quietlygoing extinct。

under people's "protection." The now extinct giant grebe. Image: David G. Allen / wikimedia

Although the situations of the Chinese giant salamander and the giant grebe are not entirely the same, they reflect the same problem - if even the most basic systematic status of a species has not been clarified, then all protection work will become empty talk.

For the Chinese giant salamander, it is not too late to adjust the protection plan in time; for other species, we hope not to repeat the same mistakes.

This article is the 177th article in the 4th year of Species Calendar, from Species Calendar author @Qi Shuo.

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Cryptobranchidae Japanese giant salamander