What is the laziest creature in the world, many people will definitely say that it is a sloth, but it is not, the laziest creature on earth is the cave salamander, they are also known as the most dragon-like creatures.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > what is the hole salamander</h1>
The cave salamander is an amphibian. It inhabits the underground veins of limestone caves in the Alps, and its distribution ranges from the Isonzo River basin near Trieste, Italy, through southern Slovenia, southwestern Croatia, and as far as Hersegovina. This species is also the only species in the genus Cave Salamander.
The cave salamander is the largest burrowing animal in the world and the only burrowing chordate in Europe. They have a slender body like a snake, usually 20 to 30 cm long, and some individuals are up to 40 cm long.
Cave organisms' adaptations to the cave environment include body discoloration, visual and auditory degradation, tactile acuity, low spawning and high hatching rate, as well as small metabolic rate, large size, long lifespan, and long developmental period of cave organisms. This set of adaptive traits is common to cave animals and is known as the troglomorphic suite, which is caused by convergent evolution.
As a typical cave creature, the cave salamander also has all these characteristics, their bodies are white due to lack of pigment, their eyes have degenerated to invisible (there is no vision at all, there will be eyes at birth, but will slowly degenerate and hide under the skin), but the hearing and smell are sharp. It can sense the movement of the outside world by the dents around the mouth, and can detect the weak current emitted by the prey.
It breathes on its exposed cheeks, the red horns on the back of the head, and with two pairs of feet, it looks a lot like a dragon in ancient Chinese mythology.
Because the amount of food that can be ingested in the cave is small, the cave environment conditions are stable, and there are few natural enemies, the cave salamander can not eat or drink for more than 7 years, and the average mating cycle is about 12.5 years.
Because the breeding cycle is so long, in 2013, a female cave salamander lays eggs in the postojna cave in Slovenia, which is the first time scientists have witnessed and documented this ancient creature breeding in the wild.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > why the salamander is so "lazy"</h1>
We must know that in addition to humans, living things are based on survival and reproduction, but because the cave environment is too harsh, they can not expand the population through large-scale reproduction, because the food will not be enough, and reproduction is a very physically draining behavior, so it is necessary to eat a lot of food, and eventually the loss is not worth it.
So the cave salamander will ensure the continuation of the species by improving its survival rate, such as hunger strike strategies.
Cave salamanders are predators, and crabs, snails and insects in caves are their main food sources, and when caught, they do not chew and swallow directly. They make full use of food, which become fats and sugars stored in the liver.
When food is scarce, the cave salamander reduces metabolism and, under extreme conditions, even absorbs its own tissues. That's why they can go 7 years without eating or drinking, and scientists have found that a cave salamander survived for 10 years without food.
And this powerful "hunger strike" ability needs to be maintained by reducing consumption and saving energy, so they will remain motionless for a long time after predation.
Scientists from the United Kingdom and Hungary studied the Proteus anguinus that live in the Bosnian-Herzegovina caves and found that the amazing creatures moved a total of less than 32 feet, or less than 10 meters, over a period of more than a decade. One of the salamanders did not even eat or drink, and remained motionless for 2569 days, counting that it had been seven years.
This evolutionary strategy also allows the salamander to have a much stronger metabolism and antioxidant capacity than other species. This allows them to have a high lifespan, the longest can live to 100 years old, and they can always remain in their juvenile form.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > the existential crisis of the cave salamander</h1>
Too lazy to eat and drink, too lazy to move, too lazy to reproduce... Not only did the seemingly fragile creature not become extinct, but it survived to this day with an astonishing century-long lifespan.
The study found that this is because the environment in which the cave salamander lives is isolated from the outside world, there is no natural enemy, and the cave salamander itself is the top predator in the cave, standing at the top of the food chain.
Therefore, in the safe and food-filled "peach blossom garden", the cave salamanders continued to "stay", ignoring the darkness and loneliness, silently fighting against the passage of time, and throwing away the long-lived animals known to everyone such as turtles, whales, and carps for a few streets.
But because of the combination of slow movement and long reproductive cycles, the animal is highly vulnerable to environmental threats and changes, and humans also use the salamander as a "sensitive indicator of how human activities change habitats."
But this evolutionary model ignores one variable - humans, because of the pollution of rivers and the exploitation of the environment, the living environment of the salamander has been greatly threatened, and the salamander is currently in a vulnerable state.