Described a new species of Salamander, leopard color

Representatives of this species were the largest animals described in the last 100 years in the United States.

Scientists say that the people of Florida spoke about an unusual animal that resembled an eel with leopard coloring. His so-called “leopard eel”. When unusual animal, the researchers found, was that it wasn’t fish, and amphibian.

Scientists have named a new species of Siren reticulata. It belongs to the order of tailed amphibians, to the suborder Salamandroidea and to the family sirenevyh. According to one of the researchers, sirens – the largest representatives of the suborder. They can grow up to 61 cm in length, but live exclusively in the water. They do not come to the surface and prefer the muddy bottom of ponds, so to catch the required number of samples has been particularly difficult.

For the first time representatives of a new species of Salamander were observed in the 1970-ies, but not described, and since they rarely met. In order to describe S. Reticulata, the researchers hunted for him for five years.