Close encounters with Japan’s ‘living fossil’
It quickly becomes clear that the giant salamander Claude Gascon inspiration struck once the button nose.
This is a dinosaur, it’s unbelievable, he says.
We usually talk salamander in the palm. Thus the hand is cut. As a leader, Dr Gascn (Conservation International CI saw) science programs and co-chair of the Division of Amphibians International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), frogs and salamanders that few in his life, but only slightly, he said compared to this.
Luckily for all numbers, especially the giant salamander, unable to cut anything, trapped in a container at the front desk in the center of the city Maniwa, about 800 kilometers west of Tokyo.
But it is impressive: about 1.7 meters (5 feet 6 inches) long, with a leathery skin, which speaks several decades, with a large head covered with gnarled tubers whose sensitivity that the movement was probably the fish was over a thousand of his life.
When to believe the local legend, this is only one copy tadpole compared to the largest ever seen at Maniwa.
A history of the 17th Century, in terms of our cultural heritage official Takashi Sakata, tells the story of a salamander (or Hanzak in the local language), 10m long marauding their way through the field chewing cows and horses in their tracks.
A local hero has been found, a Hikoshiro Mitsui, which has swallowed whole Hanzak him with his trusty sword – then apply the most heroic in the tradition to extract the beast from stem to stern.
It was a good initiative, but.
Poor harvests, people began to die in mysterious ways – including Mr. Hikoshiro themselves.
Soon the villagers will have the obvious conclusion that the spirit of revenge made salamander drawn from beyond the grave, and must be appeased. Then Maniwa city has a sanctuary Hanzak.
This story illustrates the cultural importance of this strange creature is in some parts of Japan.
Its scientific importance, since in two key areas: the living fossil of identity, and their peaceful coexistence, probably in the chytrid fungus that so many species of amphibians from Australia to the Andes is devastated.
The skeleton of this type is almost identical to the fossils 30 million years, said Tochimoto Takeyoshi, director of the Institute for Hanzak near Hyogo.
For this reason, it is a living fossil . The Hanzak (Andrias japonicus) is closer than both parents alive Chinese Giant Salamander (A.), which is pretty much in shape and size and habits that are easy to cross both class and party-goers much less similar (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) South — Eastern United States.
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