Chinese giant salamander (娃娃鱼) a.k.a ‘baby fish’ due to the sound they make that sounds like a baby crying.
The Chinese giant salamander is one of the largest salamanders and one of the largest amphibians in the world. It is fully aquatic and is endemic to rocky mountain streams and lakes in the Yangtze river basin of central China.
The Chinese giant salamander is considered to be a “living fossil”. Although protected under Chinese laws, its population has faced severe declined over the last 70 years and is currently (2022) listed as threatened. There are evidence indicating that the Chinese giant salamander may be composed of at least five cryptic species, further compounding each individual species’ endangerment. It can reach up to 50 kg (110 lb) in weight and 1.8 m (5.9 ft) in length.
There were a lot of freshwater mussels on the 2021 US extinction list. They didn’t leave us with haunting recordings of them calling out for a mate they’d never meet, there were no drawings in vivid color. They were extremely important nevertheless and their loss is frustrating too. That’s why stream ecology and mollusks have always fascinated me. They were silent, stalwart little heroes and entire species were lost to pollution.
Yeah, I am bothered by extinct animals. Even this guy. They can’t all be thylacines.
This is wacky and all but it’s also generally way too common that even regular people from our own planet think of scientists as a stuffy privileged upper class. Most people in science would make more money in retail and the only ones famous to most people are the ones that have also been TV characters.
