What’s five feet long, can regrow lost body parts, and secretes a nasty-smelling white mucus when it’s mad? A weird, “giant” animal that one wildlife lover spent years trying to spot in the wild. The Japanese giant salamander (Andrias japonicus) is endemic to Japan, which means it lives nowhere else in the world, and this lucky person found three of them.
“I feel like I won the lottery today!” wrote brookzhookz in an Instagram post sharing footage of several Japanese giant salamanders. “I’ve wanted to see these guys for years! I’ve actively looked for them many nights with no luck and today finally found 3, all about 2-3 feet long.”
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Brookzhookz spent several hours with the salamanders after finding them in the wild and took a video, which now has over 2.3 million views on TikTok and nearly 2 million on Instagram.
Japanese giant salamanders are the second-largest salamanders on Earth. Thanks to their stinky-mucus defense mechanism, they’re called Ōsanshōuo in Japan, which translates to “giant pepper fish.” Like other salamanders, these river giants have the incredible ability to regenerative lost limbs and even skin and bone, if they need to.
See a weird giant animal that only lives in Japan here:
Header stock image of Japanese giant salamander by Martin Voeller/Getty Images