Chinese Giant Salamander (Andrias davidianus)
The permanently aquatic Chinese giant salamander is heavily built, with a flat, broad head and a truncated snout. It has a wide mouth, small round eyes that lack eyelids, and small, rounded nostrils close to the edge of the upper lip at the corners of the snout. The species has a large tongue and possesses vomerine teeth (two small bumps found on the roof of the mouth or palate) in addition to a long arc of maxillary (or jaw) teeth.
The body, like the head, is quite flattened in appearance, with a broad, compressed tail almost 60% of the body length. The species has a series of costal grooves (found along the sides of the body in the region of the ribs), as well as a vertebral groove (running along the back) and a fold of skin present along the sides of the body from the back of the head to the tip of the tail. The skin is generally rough and porous with numerous wrinkles, folds and tubercles (small bumps). Individuals are dark brown, black or greenish in colour with irregularly blotched, marbled or and/or spotted patterning.
Total body length at adulthood is about 1 metre, although a classic publication on the Chinese salamander by M.L.Y. Chang in 1936 quotes a maximum length of 180 cm (1.8 metres). Individuals of 115 cm weigh over 11 kg. This makes the Chinese giant salamander the largest extant amphibian species in the world, both in terms of length and mass, although its close relative the Japanese giant salamander can also reach lengths of 1 m. However, due to wild harvesting of the Chinese giant salamander as a delicacy in Asia, most animals found today are considerably smaller.
Courtesy:http://www.edgeofexistence.org/amphibians/species_info.php?id=547
