This summer I went to Japan, the trip was organized by my university in order to visit Osaka... But I managed to escape the city for two days to go hunt for the mighty giant salamander !
I contacted a japanese scientist, Sumio Okada, who works on Andrias japonicus. He's a really nice guy ! Very happy when people want to come and see those salamanders, we managed to meet and go on the field together.
Some in situ pictures:
Caught in the net:
Measuring the beasts:
And put it back in the water:
We found "only" three Andrias, but the conditions weren't very good, normally it's easy to find more than 10 in 2-3 hours.
Sumio marks all Andrias he finds with an elecrtronic chip in the neck, that way he can easily recognize each individuals and follow their growth (he already marked more than 1600 Andrias in the area). All salamanders we caught were already marked.
And here are a few other herps I could find:
Rana nigromaculata:
Hyla japonica:
Elaphe quadrivirgata:
And I forgot the name of this nice little newt, maybe someone can identify it ?