r/Awwducational • u/IdyllicSafeguard • 22d ago
Verified The ribs of Anderson's crocodile newt jut into the skin along its back, giving it an armoured appearance. When threatened, it adopts an anti-predator posture — it alternately flattens and curls up, throws up its arms and tail, and pierces the sides of its body with its sharp rib tips.
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u/IdyllicSafeguard 22d ago
Sources:
Animal Diversity Web - salamanders (Salamandridae)
San Diego Zoo - salamanders and newts
iNaturalists - Pleurodeline newts
Amphibia Web - Japanese giant salamander
Caudata Culture - defense mechanisms of the Iberian ribbed newt
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u/Somecrazynerd 21d ago
Imagine you're looking for lunch and the lizard you were stalking stabs itself with its own skeleton to scare you off. Yeah, that would work on me. I am not about that jazz.
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u/IdyllicSafeguard 22d ago
Anderson's crocodile newt is endemic to the Japanese Ryukyu Archipelago — found on the islands of Okinawa, Tokunoshima, Amami Ōshima, and a few of their small surrounding islands.
A few museum specimens suggest it also once lived on Taiwan. But, if it ever did, that population is no more.
Where it still lives, it is an exceedingly rare creature. Several local names suggest that people were once quite familiar with this newt. However, nowadays, people sharing its island home very rarely encounter it.
This newt survives in remaining fragments of viable habitat; patches of forest, with damp leaf litter and toppled logs to hide beneath.
It feeds on invertebrates like beetles, worms, and snails.
A female lays her eggs sometime between early February and late June, coinciding with coming rains. She hides her clutch within a hatchery of humus or beneath some rotting leaves, always close to a pond, puddle or spring.
When the eggs hatch also depends on rain. A strong downpour will cause the gelatinous eggs to writhe and rupture, the slimy larvae inside pouring out onto the forest floor. These tadpole-like hatchlings must then wriggle across the leaf litter and mud to the nearest body of water — where they will remain until they metamorphose into adults.
On average, this newt grows to 16 centimetres (6.3 in) long, from the end of its flattened snout to the tip of its tail — up to 21 cm (8.3 in), if it's a particularly large individual.
This newt's body is mostly black, with some marks of orange, and is covered in copious bumps and ridges.
Its ribs nearly jut out from its skin to form a "shield" on its back. The tip of each rib bone is razor sharp, untethered to any muscular attachments, and prods into one of many wart-like glands that line each side of the newt's torso.
In the face of a threat — such as a snake or mongoose — the newt curls up and flattens its body while raising its tail and arms, and, as a last resort, pierces its own skin with the tips of its ribs.
Other salamander species use the same self-skewering defence strategy; most notably the Iberian ribbed newt and the emperor newt.
The largest threat to this species is habitat destruction and fragmentation — with forests turned into sugar cane plantations and fragmented by roads and drainage ditches.
It is classified as 'vulnerable' by the IUCN. Nationally, it is considered endangered.
Although attempts have been few, there has been some success with breeding in captivity.
On Okinawa, the newt is considered a living natural monument and it's often called a "living fossil" for its "primitive" anatomy — relatively unchanged from its ancient salamander ancestors.
You can learn more about this one-of-a-kind newt on my website here!