Giant Salamanders Are Big

Recently, the Chinese media published an intriguing photograph of a giant salamander, which truly gives a good idea of how big they are.

Some reports of the giant salamanders of Japan and China have been recorded in the 5 to 6 feet range. The Japanese giant salamander (Andrias japonicus), for example, reaches up to 4 ft 9 in (1.44 m), feeds on fish, and crustaceans – and has been known to live for more than 50 years in captivity. The Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus) can reach a length of 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m), perhaps even bigger.

The American hellbenders and Asian giant salamanders all belong to the family Cryptobranchidae.

Tom Slick searched for cryptid Giant Salamanders in the Trinity Alps of California, or should I say, cryptid Cryptobranchidae?

My biography of Slick documents his quests for the Abominable Snowmen, Loch Ness Monsters, Sumatran rhinos, Bigfoot, and Orang Pendek, and – yes – the darker, maybe black Trinity Alps’ Giant Salamanders. See Tom Slick: True Life Encounters in Cryptozoology (Fresno: Linden Press, 2002). One of Slick’s favorite quests was for those Giant Salamanders because he was able to bring along his sons. Hey, that was the ultimate fishing trip with their Dad, if you ask me.

Asian folktales talk of giant salamanders so big they attacked boats and the humans in them.

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

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