Head to head
Chinese Giant Salamander vs Japanese Giant Salamander
These are the two largest amphibians alive, close relatives in the genus Andrias, survivors of a lineage more than 150 million years old. The Chinese giant salamander is the bigger of the two, historically reaching around 1.8 metres, and it lives in mountain streams across central and southern China. The Japanese giant salamander reaches about 1.5 metres and is found on three of Japan's main islands. They look almost identical, but their fortunes differ enormously.
| Chinese Giant Salamander | Japanese Giant Salamander | |
|---|---|---|
| Scientific name | Andrias davidianus (a complex of species) | Andrias japonicus |
| Maximum length | Historically up to about 1.8 m | Up to about 1.5 m |
| Range | Mountain streams of central and southern China | Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu in Japan |
| Head tubercles | Mostly paired | Mostly single, scattered |
| Main threat | Hunting and collection for the luxury-food trade | Hybridisation with released Chinese giant salamanders; river barriers |
| Legal protection | Protected on paper; farming and poaching undermine it | Special Natural Monument since 1952; strongly enforced |
| Lifespan | Fifty years or more | Fifty years or more; a zoo animal reached about 70 |
| Conservation status | Critically Endangered | Near Threatened |
Chinese Giant Salamander vs Japanese Giant Salamander: common questions
Which is bigger?
The Chinese giant salamander, at least on the record books. The largest reliable historical lengths for the Chinese species are around 1.8 metres, while the Japanese species tops out closer to 1.5. In practice, very large individuals of either are now vanishingly rare in the wild, because the biggest animals are the oldest and have been the first to be taken by hunters or lost to habitat damage. Most wild adults encountered today are well under a metre. Farmed Chinese giant salamanders raised for food are usually harvested small.
Why is the Chinese giant salamander so much more endangered?
Demand. Its meat became a prized and expensive delicacy in China, which drove intense hunting of wild animals and then the rise of a huge farming industry that was initially stocked with wild-caught breeders. Wild populations were stripped from stream after stream, and surveys in the 2010s failed to find viable wild populations across much of the historical range. Farm escapes and well-meaning releases have then spread farmed animals, and their diseases and genes, into rivers where distinct local lineages once lived. The Japanese giant salamander never faced that level of commercial exploitation and has had decades of legal protection and public affection behind it.
How are these salamanders related to the hellbender?
They are its closest relatives. The hellbender of the eastern United States is placed in the same family, Cryptobranchidae, the giant salamanders, and is essentially a smaller North American member of the group, reaching about 70 centimetres against the Asian species' one to two metres. All of them are fully aquatic, breathe largely through wrinkled folds of skin, live in cold running water, have males that guard eggs, and belong to an ancient lineage that has changed little in tens of millions of years, which is why they are often called living fossils.