''Andrias'' is a genus of

giant salamander The Cryptobranchidae (commonly known as giant salamanders) are a family of large salamanders that are fully aquatic. The family includes some of the largest living amphibians. They are native to China, Japan, and the eastern United States. Giant ...

s. It includes the largest

salamander Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All t ...

s in the world, with ''A. japonicus'' reaching a length of , and ''A. sligoi'' reaching . While extant species are known only from

East Asia East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

, several extinct species in the genus are known from late

Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch (geology), epoch of the Paleogene Geologic time scale, Period that extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that defin ...

and

Neogene The Neogene ( ,) is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period million years ago. It is the second period of th ...

aged fossils collected in Europe and North America, indicating that the genus formerly had a much wider range.

Taxonomy

The generic name derives from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

ἀνδριάς, "statue". The former name was ''Megalobatrachus'', from Ancient Greek meaning "giant frog".

Phylogeny

This phylogeny is based on Chai ''et al'' (2022). and Vasilyan ''et al'' (2013) Alternative phylogeny by Fang ''et al'' (2018).

Species

Extant species

Based on genetic evidence, there may be more extant species in the genus. A study in 2018 found that ''A. davidianus'' ''

sensu lato ''Sensu'' is a Latin word meaning "in the sense of". It is used in a number of fields including biology, geology, linguistics, semiotics, and law. Commonly it refers to how strictly or loosely an expression is used in describing any particular co ...

'' was a

species complex In biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each oth ...

that consisted of at least five different species. ''A. sligoi'', which was formerly synonymized with ''A. davidianus'', was revived in 2019 for one of these populations. Another one of these was described as ''A. jiangxiensis'' in 2022, and another as ''A. cheni'' in 2023.

Fossil species

References

AmphibiaWeb - Andrias japonicus
Accessed 2008-04-08.
AmphibiaWeb - Andrias davidianus
Accessed 2008-04-08.
Amphibian Species of the World 5.1.
Accessed 2008-04-10. {{Authority control Cryptobranchidae Amphibian genera Taxa named by Johann Jakob von Tschudi Extant Miocene first appearances