Comments on: Giant Salamanders Are Big

By: red_pill_junkie

red_pill_junkie — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:26:16 +0000

nick_beyondthetree, thanks for the tip. Quite interesting buggers these olms eh?

Another interesting feature of these animals is the way they swim, a serpentine vertical motion of the tail, which BTW, it’s always described in accounts of Marine Sea Serpents. Makes my imagination fly…

By: mystery_man

mystery_man — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 07:20:31 +0000

Dogu4- Very nicely said. I always appreciate your knowledge of the landscapes, changes, and biomes of different geological eras and what they meant for the fauna that inhabited them as well as our current ecology. Using that knowledge, you manage to come up with some very thought provoking hypotheses and ideas. Great insights as usual.

Yes, I do try to remain mindful of what sorts of surprises the natural world can throw at us and base most of my ideas on actual valid scientific premises, being the science nut that I am. Your way of considering the real biological possibilities very often reflects my own way of thinking about these cryptids. With everything we have discovered in the natural world, I think it is hard NOT to keep an open mind. Of course, I can be quite skeptical at times, but that is only because I believe in science, in following the evidence where it leads rather than deciding something is real first, and waiting for someone to try and prove that it isn’t (basically the antithesis of science). Sometimes it is not “when” we find evidence, but “if”, and there is a difference. But yes, I have an open perspective because I really think the natural world can be much more wondrous than any of us can imagine it to be. Whether people want to call them cryptids or not, we are simply nowhere near finished with finding everything that is out there, or having catalogued all of the biodiversity this world of ours cradles.

Many pages have been filled with our ever growing knowledge of the natural world, and I think there are many empty pages that lie ahead before this book is closed. The excitement I feel in anticipation of what might fill those pages keeps my perspective open and my desire to learn keen. I sense that same appreciation and awe for nature in your posts, so I always appreciate your taking the time to post and discuss these things.

By: nick_beyondthetree

nick_beyondthetree — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 04:45:17 +0000

Concerning Axolotls, there is a similar species called the Olm (Proteus Anguinus), which inhabitsthe Dinaric Karst cave systems in South Eastern Europe, specifically NE Italy, Slovenia, Croatia and Herzegovina. They grow to about 40cm (1′3″), sso not quite as impressive as the Giant Salamanders. Like Axolotls, they lack pigment and are entirely aquatic, retaining their gills throughout their lives. They are totally blind - while they do have eyes, they are under-developed as an adaptation to the total darkness of their habitat. They are not actually Salamanders, although they are amphibians. They have a long, flexible almost snakelike body.

There is a subspsecies, the Black Proteus (Proteus Anguinus Parkelj) which, as the name suggests, is black. These guys have better developed eyes, but are confined to a distribution area of just 39 sq miles!

Check out the wikipedia article for more info and some good photos.

By: joe levit

joe levit — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:30:47 +0000

Concerning Giant Salamanders - there is a terrific article about them in the July 2007 issue of FATE magazine (Loren Coleman gets a mention, too). The author is making the case for two different large unknown salamanders in the pacific northwest. One smaller group along the coast, showing up on land, and the more famous Trinity Alps group in the water, inland.

This is the type of discovery that to me seems quite possible as a stepping stone to finding bigger and more exotic creatures. You find the salamanders, say “Look what cryptozoology can accomplish,” and move on to the next most likely creature, to build up to financial support for the search for creatures like bigfoot and lake and sea serpents.

By: hammerhead

hammerhead — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:18:41 +0000

Well, the local fishermen in this area report catching large salamanders with “teeth” in one obscure location, at the mouth of a creek that feeds into the eel river in SW Indiana, they claim, and I have my own son as a first hand witness, these “salamanders” are up to two to three feet long, bad tempered, and bear teeth, they complain about them because apparentley the salamanders hit the bait furiousley swallowing it whole and biting at ppl so they have to cut the lines to let them go or risk getting the crap bitten out of them, under these curcumstances, if there was a remnent cache of these amphibians, someone should try to get this area protected and investigated before they are all killed off by these fishermen if it hasnt already happened, there is one place in indiana with a hellbender population which is in the blue river but thats no where near us, but i dont think these guys are describing hellbenders, im familure with those, these are something else. someone needs to look into this SOON.

By: dogu4

dogu4 — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:41:15 +0000

Hey Mystery Man; Thank you, I always appreciate your open perspective on these cryptids. Just allowing for their existence opens up a world in which barely discernable homologies rather than simple speculation is applied. Animals sizes are related to the biosystem in which they live as a general rule (lots of exceptions) but take a moment and calculate how large the continuous habitat that for millions of years (in constrast to our interglacial warm spell) existed at the mid-latitude periphery of what was then an advanced arctic climate unlike any that exists in scale today: cold, windy, glacial fed but unlike the arctic of today, flooded with daylight for a longer period of the year. As it withdrew it would have left a lot of refugia; sustaining lingering long-lived (slow reproducing)examples that reflected the enoromous bioregion that has since retreated: Supersized sturgeo in central Eursian river systems, mini-mammoths on Wrangell island, and the huge hell-benders released from no longer persistent glacial fjords and outbreak lakes, and even solitary steppe hominids. I think some of our mythic creatures become more understandable in the context of the world that was widespread and characteristic for the vast majority of our natural history…it’s today’s modern and mild world that is the anamolous. I’d bet there was some happy hunting in the now-invisible landscape of the past. Maybe we’ll find more fossil evidence as the insatiable hunger for pleistocene gravel reaches into the far north as it’s developed industrially, just as with the North Sea gravels are being harvested today. Fingers crossed and eyes wide open.

By: mystery_man

mystery_man — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 07:28:45 +0000

Red_pill_junky- Those axolotles are fascinating as they retain most larval features while developing reproductive organs. They actually able to reach a mature, adult stage (non-larval) under the right circumstances, usually in a lab or in captivity, but they don’t reach very large sizes in this state. Nothing like what we see here with the giant salamanders. Neoteny (sometimes called paedomorphosis) is not even unique to them. Nine of the ten families of Caudata (the order that salamanders are in), exhibit some form of neoteny to differing degrees, and there are four families of salamanders that are comprised fully of species that retain larval characteristics into adulthood.

Dogu 4- Like I said, there are quite a few species of salamanders that possess larval characteristics. I suppose there could be very large types dwelling undiscovered in this state where the conditions are right. As far as growth goes, since the giant salamanders basically grow throughout their entire lives, I see no reason to think there could not be larger specimens or even new species of salamander out there.

By: olejason

olejason — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 06:00:20 +0000

The ‘hammerhead salamander’ was a model a student made

By: Krisspy Boy

Krisspy Boy — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 01:13:10 +0000

Oh man, I always thought we had big salamanders and newts here in Northwest Washington. If I find one that big here I’m moving out!

By: mantis

mantis — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 23:22:10 +0000

Hey Loren,
Was there ever any investigation into the “hammerhead salamander” picture?