BBC News - Close encounters with Japan's 'living fossil'Fortunately for all of our digits, this particular giant salamander is in no position to chop off anything, trapped in a tank in the visitors' centre in Maniwa City, about 800km west of Tokyo. 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
