Chinese Giant Salamander

The eggs mainly spawn during the night, with as many as 400-1,500 eggs spawning at a time.

The giant salamander breeds from May to August each year, but the males and females are difficult to distinguish solely based on appearance. Males do not scream, and from extensive research, there doesn’t appear to be any sort of mating behavior. Instead, males produce blobs of sperm called spermatophores, and the females then take these spermatophores into their bodies to fertilize their eggs. Males perform extremely important tasks in the breeding of their offspring. Not only do they need to actively attract and tease females, they are also responsible for designating appropriate caves as “delivery rooms” for hatching the eggs. These eggs mainly spawn during the night, with as many as 400-1,500 eggs spawning at a time. After laying the eggs, the female leaves the cave while the male remains. It often bends its body into a semi-circle to surround the eggs, or wraps itself around them to protect them from being washed away by water or being attacked by natural enemies. The period of incubation is 30-40 days and sometimes up to 80 days, varying with the water temperature.

The newly hatched babies resemble a tadpole, with nostrils on the head, and external gills on the neck – from which respiration is carried out. The ellipsoidal abdomen is filled with a yolk-like material, which is its main source of nutrition for the first year after its birth. When the yolk disappears in the second year, it begins to hunt for its own food, usually worms floating on the surface of the water. In the third year, the outer gills disappear, the lungs form, and maturity is reached. When they get bigger, they usually start hunting all kinds of fish, shrimps, and crabs. In the fifth year, the giant salamander is considered sexually developed.

Although the living requirements of the giant salamander are quite specific, it can still be widely found throughout many mountainous areas in China. The three major river basins in China, the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, the Yangtze River, and the Pearl River and their tributaries, Beijing’s Huairou District in the north, Gansu and Qinghai provinces in the west, and Guangdong and Guangxi in the south, all have giant salamanders.

However, as its habitat continues to be fragmented, giant salamanders face the danger of becoming an endangered species. As early as 1959, the giant salamander was identified by the Chinese government as an animal to be accorded top national-level protection. In 1988, it was again listed as a second-class national protected animal. In the 1990s, there were about 15 national-level conservation areas for the giant salamander in China. In 2004, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) included the Chinese giant salamander in the Red List of Critically Endangered Species.

Fortunately, China has entered a new era of returning farmlands to forests and comprehensively protecting the ecological environment. Lush foliage and clear streams have created a good habitat for the giant salamander, bringing about the rejuvenation of its population. At present, the national conservation areas have been expanded to 21, including two national-level conservation areas in Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province and Taibai, Shaanxi Province. An increasing number of places continues to turn up with evidence of the presence of the giant salamander, among which there may be an undiscovered wild species, as well as possible descendants from artificial breeding.