This is why I love newspapers. In the Toronto Sun on Monday there was a story and photo about rare and endangered reptiles. Aside from the potential tragedy in losing these creatures to the hostile world we’ve created, the details were fascinating, especially about a giant salamander. Called an olm, the creature was wandering the earth before Tyrannosaurus Rex showed up. Now that’s a survivor! Imagine outliving the dinosaurs. It’s a shame it appears as though they might not outlive the human race. Given our penchant for self-destruction, on the other hand, they might yet be around to someday reminisce about the time when people inhabited the earth.
Besides being old, the olm is blind and very big. But what caught my eye most about the creature is the fact that it can go years without food. I have known bachelors who achieved almost the same amazing feat – I myself was one for 20 years – but it is nevertheless incredible that there is a creature on earth which only needs a meal once every decade. This guy is well on his way to being the perfect housepet, with a feature such as that.
However, the newspaper story did not detail how much the salamander eats when he finally sits down to a meal after the 10 years are up. My guess is a seven-course meal would not do the trick. I’d be throwin’ a few pies his way too, maybe a gallon or three of cider.
Following all that, I would not want to be around to witness the belch from a creature who had just finished eating his first solid meal in 3,652 days. Nor experience any of his other bodily functions.
Also endangered (sadly) is a purple frog the size of a pin which lives four metres down in the earth. I would say it’s a toss-up which creature devours more – an animal which can go 10 years without food or another which eats often but is only the size of a pin to begin with.
Here are the eight other most endangered amphibians in need of help to survive: The limbless Sagalla caecillian, South African ghost frogs, lungless Mexican salamanders, the Malagasy rainbow frog, Chile’s Darwin frog and the Betic midwife toad whose male carries fertilized eggs on its hind legs.
We humans are such an arrogant group we think we’ve got this survival thing down pat. But along with the salamander, they say there is a chipmunk which was also around when the dinosaurs roamed the planet. What stories these two old fellas could tell … Sally and Chip.
Add to that the reality that scientists are still discovering creatures – birds, fish and mammals – which they didn’t know existed and are rediscovering some that they thought had died out.
Even the most sober of newspapers can’t resist the weird and wonderful and I hope they never do give up their priceless “oddities in the news.”
©2008 Jim Hagarty
