Rare Giant Salamander Takes A Stroll By Japanese River [Video]

Japan is home to many giant creatures, like Godzilla and Gamera, but unlike those enormous legends, the giant salamander is real. This one startled residents when it decided to take a stroll along the Kamogawa River in Kyoto, Japan.

The giant salamanders are rare, as well as nocturnal, according to the Bangkok Post, so they are not often seen. For some reason, this big guy decided to venture onto land on July 4, 2014. When he was spotted on the path by the river, people were alarmed and called police. “Help! It’s a river monster!”

One bystander was brave enough to pull out his cell phone and record the lazy meanderings of the huge creature, and the video quickly became an internet sensation.

According to Doubtful News, the giant salamander can grow up to five feet in length and weigh up to 80 pounds, and this one was pretty close to that size. Its proper name is the ?sansh?uo. They live in cool, clear rivers and are actually a protected species. At one time, their meat was valued as food (“tastes like chicken”). Japanese giant salamanders do not generally venture onto land, which may account for the residents not knowing what it was.

They even have a festival in Japan to celebrate them every August 8 in Okayama.

Wildlife blogger Mark Brazil has spent more than a decade trying to track down the elusive, almost mythical creature. He writes in Japan Visitor that he became obsessed with finding the Japanese giant salamander, an amphibian about which precious little has been written.

He describes a fascinating trait of the salamander that is best read about rather than experienced. Brazil’s first encounter startled the animal, and its physiological response was to turn milky white, excreting an acrid, sticky white substance all over its body. Some say that the smell is similar to Japanese peppers, but that sounds downright pleasant compared to Mark Brazil’s account:

“It was exuding the foulest smell I had ever encountered, a description of which is virtually beyond the English language. Imagine, if you will, the rankest smelling public urinal crossed with the stale smell of certain ‘bodily secretions’ and you are just part way there. I imagined that even diluted in water, that acrid secretion might be enough to deter a potential attacker.”

Fortunately for the onlookers in Kyoto Friday, their giant salamander did not decide to emit any noxious odors as it meandered down the river path.

[image via bing]