Andrias davidianus

The Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus) is an amphibian of the genus Andrias in the family Cryptobranchidae, a national Class II protected species of China. It has a large, flattened body, generally 50-80cm in length, with the largest individual reaching over 200cm in length. It is an ancient amphibian that evolved from an aquatic fish during the Devonian period of the Paleozoic Era 360 million years ago. This means that the ancestor of the giant salamander occurred more than 100 million years earlier than the dinosaurs that lived 230 million years ago in the Mesozoic Era. The oldest fossil of the Chinese giant salamander in the world was found in Inner Mongolia, China, about 165 million years old.