A huge amphibian without legs: scientists have been looking for it for 5 years and finally found

The search for this mysterious inhabitant of ponds in Florida is more like a detective story than scientific research. Having several eyewitness accounts, who claimed to have seen a huge eel of leopard coloring in the river, scientists searched the reservoirs for 5 years in search of a mysterious creature, and the entire search operation was carried out exclusively at the expense of the researchers themselves. But, as it turned out, the result was worth it: the animal was not only found, but also became one of the largest species found in the United States over the past century.

The fact of discovering a new species of large vertebrate animal in our time is very rare. Most of the newly described animal species belong to invertebrates and small fish species, and discoveries among large vertebrates can be counted on the fingers. But in the case of this spotted amphibian, it was precisely the discovery of a new species that was recorded, and not the isolation of the species from the existing population according to the results of genetic analysis, as is often the case recently. It is also interesting that scientists were looking for fish - large spotted eel, but in the end they found an amphibian - a very unusual siren.

The new animal, which for a long time existed in the form of a semi-mythical creature called leopard eel, received the scientific name net sirens (lat. Siren reticulata) and was assigned to the family of sirens. In total, this family has 5 species, including the newly found mesh serena. All of them live in the rivers and swamps of North America, in Mexico and in the south of the USA. These amphibians live only in water and never go on land, such as frogs or toads, which are also amphibians, but live on land, returning to water only during the breeding season. In addition, mesh sirens are a very large amphibian, whose sizes can reach 50-60 centimeters.

It turned out that the animal was not mistakenly mistaken for eel fish: the hind limbs were reduced in this species of amphibians, that is, they simply did not exist. There are only forepaws, and the gills of this siren have the appearance of coral branches.

Judging by the fact that scientists have not been able to detect spotted amphibians for so long, this species does not differ in high numbers. Biologists still have a lot of research, and work on the study of a new species will continue.