Hurray, I’m now a Cambridge certified EFL teacher! And for the moment I have a much more relaxed schedule, so my blog will see more love than it has in past weeks. Starting with this fantastic creature, Japan’s Giant Salamander.

But impressive it certainly is: about 1.7m (5ft 6in) long, covered in a leathery skin that speaks of many decades passed, with a massive gnarled head covered in tubercles whose presumed sensitivity to motion probably helped it catch fish by the thousand over its lifetime.

If local legend is to be believed, though, this specimen is a mere tadpole compared with the biggest ever seen around Maniwa.

A 17th Century tale, related to us by cultural heritage officer Takashi Sakata, tells of a salamander (or hanzaki, in local parlance) 10m long that marauded its way across the countryside chomping cows and horses in its tracks.

It’s referred to as a “living fossil” because its skeleton still resembles closely that of 30 million year old examples (see right).

The full article describes the creature’s highly unusual manner of (external) fertilization. It sounds almost as alien as slug sex. It really is from another world: see the video and accompanying article @ BBC News.

Photo by wikipedia user Haplochromis.