South China giant salamander

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South China giant salamander

Critically endangered, possibly extinct in the wild (IUCN 3.1)[1]
CITES Appendix I (CITES)[2]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Urodela
Family: Cryptobranchidae
Genus: Andrias
Species:
A. sligoi
Binomial name
Andrias sligoi
(Boulenger, 1924)
Synonyms

Megalobatrachus sligoi

The South China giant salamander (Andrias sligoi) may be the largest species of

Pearl River basin south of the Nanling Mountains. It is extremely endangered and may no longer exist in the wild.[3]

Discovery and description

A photo of a preserved specimen of Andrias sligoi, which is a long, brownish salamander with short limbs and a large head, against a black background
A preserved specimen of A. sligoi

It was described in 1924 (as Megalobatrachus sligoi) by Edward George Boulenger from a captive specimen held in the London Zoo. This individual was originally held in the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens and may have originated from Guangxi or Guangdong Province, and was likely one of many giant salamanders captured from the mainland and placed in the Botanical Gardens' fountain, all of which had escaped. During a particularly violent storm in April 1920, a large drain pipe in the Gardens burst, carving a large depression into the land that the escaped salamander was washed into. It was captured and kept in a large circular basin, where it was fed daily with live tadpoles and occasionally beef.[3][4]

The captured salamander was later seen by

Reginald Edward Stubbs, to present the salamander to the Zoological Society of London. Upon receiving the individual, Boulenger found it to be physically distinct from "Megalobatrachus maximus" (the former species into which his father, George Albert Boulenger, lumped both the Japanese giant salamander and Chinese giant salamander) and it thus likely represented a new species. During Boulenger's description, he named the species M. sligoi in honor of Browne's title.[4][5]

Taxonomy

Despite Boulenger's classification, the species was later synonymized with the Chinese giant salamander (A. davidianus), and eventually forgotten. However, a study published in 2018 found that the Chinese giant salamander actually consisted of numerous clades restricted to different river basins, with many of them being distinct enough to be considered separate species. One of these clades was the unnamed Clade D, sister to the unnamed Clade U1.[6] A 2019 study of museum specimens found that the South Chinese population of A. davidianus was referable to Clade D, likely represented a distinct species, and was the subject of Boulenger's initial study, and thus supported the revival of A. sligoi as a distinct species.[3]

Size

It is possible that A. sligoi may be the largest extant amphibian today, a superlative generally attributed to A. davidianus. The largest known Andrias specimen was a 1.8 m (5.9 ft) individual captured near Guiyang in Guizhou Province in the early 1920s. Although historical specimens collected near Guizhou do not have enough usable DNA to identify the species they belong to, more recent specimens collected from the region cluster with A. sligoi, meaning that the largest collected individual may have been an A. sligoi, rather than A. davidianus or a related species.[3]

Threats and conservation

The South China giant salamander is highly endangered by

founder population for the purpose of captive breeding and release.[3][7]

References

  1. .
  2. ^ "Appendices | CITES". cites.org. Retrieved 2022-01-14.
  3. ^
    PMID 31624538
    .
  4. ^ .
  5. ^ Sylph, Ann (April 3, 2019). "Celebrating the Chinese Giant Salamander". Zoological Society of London (ZSL). Retrieved 2019-09-17.
  6. PMID 29787716
    .
  7. ^ "World's largest amphibian identified as a unique species". Animals. 2019-09-16. Archived from the original on September 18, 2019. Retrieved 2019-09-17.