Re: NANFA-- Check out Giant Mudpuppies?

Bruce Stallsmith (fundulus_at_hotmail.com)
Fri, 15 Jun 2001 00:26:43 -0400

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>In a message dated 6/9/01 7:58:16 AM US Eastern Standard Time,
>Moontanman_at_aol.com writes:
>
><< Sorry check this link <A
>HREF="http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/7270/mudpuppy.html">Click
>here:
> Giant Mudpuppies?</A>
> >>
>
>I saw one in Ohio just last year. Elvis was riding it.
I was in Buffalo, NY, last week and had a chance to visit the zoo there. The
group I was with visited the non-public area of the reptile and amphibian
collection of the zoo. They've acquired a pair of the Japanese Giant
Salamander, _Megalobaranchus japonicus_. They're kept in a refrigerated
room, and as half-grown animals they're each about a meter long. Yes, I have
now seen _mean_ amphibians. These guys were a basic gray body color with
darker gray and black splotches. Last summer the Tennessee Valley Gang of
NANFA netted a hellbender out of the Hiwassee River in TN. The hellbender
was tiny in comparison to its Japanese cousins!
Is there a North American giant salamander not known to science, maybe in
caves? Probably not, there wouldn't be enough food for such an animal in
caves. If one exists, I have no doubt that Elvis rides one!

--Bruce Stallsmith
Huntsville, AL

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