The following photographic-rich article is about the human-faced fish from the viewpoint of the visual anthropology and cryptozoology by Takeshi Yamada. Yamada is one of the most active artists in New York City and has had over 400 fine art exhibitions internationally with his paintings and sculptures. This comprehensive article features subject matters such as real human-faced animals, Renaissance time zoology, cult of Global Warming, real human-faced fish, real walking fish with arms and legs, real 12-legged fish, Jenny Haniver, rogue taxidermy artworks of human-faced fish, fish-human, American modern sideshow, gaffs, and other fascinating topics. This manuscript was produced by Dr. Eriko N. Bond, an active art critic and author in New York City, as told by Takeshi Yamada.

TAKESHI YAMADA

ON

HUMAN-FACED FISH

AND

WALKING FISH

Chapter 6

Walking Fish (Fish with Arms and Legs)

Before writing about the魚人 (Gyojin or “fish-human”) / 半魚人 (Hango-jin or half fish-human), to make this article complete, this author is compelled to describe several groups of unique real fish with arms and legs.

Darwin Fish as seen in the United States.

There are many species of fish in freshwater and saltwater, which use strong fins for literally crawling around the bottom of the water or wetland/beach. The mudskipper and houbou shown below are not good examples to be featured in details because this author does not consider their fins sophisticated enough to be called fully functioning real arms with fingers or legs with toes.

The mudskipper (飛鯊. トビハゼ. Tobihaze in Japanese) is a “Walking Fish” (ambulatory fish)

because this fish can craw and walk the muddy beach. This tasty fish is also called Mutsugorou in Japan.

Red Guanard (Chelidonichthys spinosus. Houbou in Japanese) is a fish,

which use its uniquely modified pelvic fins for walking the ocean floor.

This tasty fish is a really good walker.

Mother Nature created many monsters and marvels in reality. The “real” alive and breathing monsters featured here are no exceptions. In fact, there are many species of fish with real and functioning arms and legs in America and other countries. They have different common names such as “Waterdog”, mudpuppy”, “Mexican Walking Fish”, “snot otter”, "devil dog", “Hellbender” and so on. Scientifically speaking, these monstrous fish are all a family of aquatic salamanders. Larvae of this species fail to undergo metamorphosis, so the adults remain aquatic and gilled, just like the normal fish except they grows arms and legs.

Mexican Walking Fish                           

The Mexican Walking Fish or Axolotls (Ambystoma mexicanum) are used extensively in scientific research due to their ability to regenerate most body parts, ease of breeding, and large embryos. With its ease of breeding and rather cute frog-like face with no blinking round eyes like the fish, this monstrous fish is very popular among children. Therefore, naturally, they are sold and kept as exotic pets in the United States and other countries such as Great Britain, Australia, and Japan.

The Mexican Walking Fish has an extremely unique biology called “neoteny” or “perennibranchiate”; it remains in its larval form throughout its life, and it reaches sexual maturity in this larval stage. Another fascinating fact of this organism is that it is completely aquatic, and although it does possess rudimentary lungs, it breathes primarily through its gills and to a lesser extent, its skin just like ordinary fish. Nevertheless, for this author, the most remarkable matter is what today’s scientists theorized about this monster fish; It is generally accepted that “neoteny” is a "backward" step in evolution, because the Axolotl is descended from what were once terrestrial salamanders. For more information including breeding tips of this remarkable freak artwork of Mother Nature, see the following non-profit organization’s website.  http://www.axolotl.org/

Coney Island Brand Exotic Canner Food #60: Mud Puppy,

digital illustration on paper, Takeshi Yamada, 2005

The Waterdog/Mud Puppy (Necturus maculosus maculosus) is a large (8 to 19 inches) permanently aquatic salamander.  Although a mudpuppy and an immature salamander look alike when they are young, mudpuppies tend to grow much larger. The waterdog or mudpuppy family, proteidae, is divided into two genera - Necturus with six North American species, and Proteus with one European species. The genera Necturus includes Alabama Waterdog (Necturus alabamensis), Gulf Coast Waterdog (Necturus beyeri), Neuse River Waterdog (Necturus lewisi), Red River Mudpuppy (Necturus louisianensis), Common Mudpuppy (Necturus maculosus), Dwarf Waterdog (Necturus punctatus). The genera Proteus with Olm (Proteus anguinus).

Mole salamander’s juvenile. The salamanders’ juveniles are all walking fish.

In addition to these, there is a larger walking fish native to America. It’s common names include  the "snot otter" and "devil dog" but the most popularized name is the Hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis).  The male and female are about the same size, from 12 inch to a record 29 inch. There are two subspecies and they are Eastern Hellbender (C. a. alleganiensis) and Ozark Hellbender (C. a. bishopi). Hellbenders may live up to twenty-nine years in captivity.

1. Cameleon  2. Siren  3. Salamander (19th century hand-colored engraving zoological print)

In addition to these remarkable monsters, there is also another fascinating fish with limbs. This animal has only a pair of small front legs whereas the mudpuppy has both front and back legs. It is the Siren.   The Siren is also a species of aquatic salamander native to the eastern United States and northern Mexico. Among them are the Greater Siren (Siren lacertian), Lesser Siren (Siren intermedia), and Dwarf Siren (Pseudobranchus sp.).

The Greater Siren (Siren lacertina) is an eel-like amphibian, and it is the largest of the Sirens (19- 38 inch). They range in color from black to brown, and have a lighter grey or yellow underbelly. Younger Sirens also have a light stripe along their side, which goes away with age. Unlike Mexican Walking Fish, Waterdog, Mud Puppy, this creature has no hind legs. In addition, the front legs, each with four toes, are so small that they can be often hidden in the gills. Its captive longevity is about 25 years. In addition to its strange physical attributes, the Greater Siren has also truly remarkable biology; when drought strikes the sirens aestivate (summer time equivalent of the hibernation) in mud burrows and their bodies secrete a moisture-sealing cocoon over the body unlike any other fish with arms and legs.

Japanese Giant Salamander could grow nearly 60 inches.

http://www.city.himeji.hyogo.jp/aqua/josetsu/gs/index.html

Note: In the United States, as stated above, the largest walking fish, the Greater Siren, could grow up to 38 inches.

Nevertheless, the country where Takeshi Yamada was born, the story is completely different. Yamada actually saw Oosansho-uo (大山椒魚, オオサンショウウオ, literally meaning “Giant Japanese-Pepper Fish”, Japanese Giant Salamander) when he went to a school trip to Akame City, which is known for 48 sacred and divine water falls. The Japanese giant salamander (Andrias japonicus) is native to Japan and one of the largest salamanders in the world. (Japanese giant salamanders and Chinese giant salamanders are the two largest salamanders in the world.) They live only at the clean, cold, fast-running mountain streams and rivers in Japan. The walking fish he saw there were simply gigantic – each is more than four feet! In reality, Japanese Giant Salamander can grow to nearly five feet long with a weight about 55 pounds as an adult. Yamada states that they looked like slimy, rubbery, extremely over grown giant alligators at the bottom of the shallow water.

This truly monstrous gigantic walking fish has been protected by the government as Tokubetsu Tennen Kinen Butsu (特別天然記念物, Special Natural Monument) in Japan. What it means is that people are not legally allowed to eat this giant salamander unlike other salamanders. In Japan, smaller salamander species have been grilled and eaten like common small fish for many centuries at traditional Japanese restaurants and ryokan (old Japanese style small local hotels). It is said they taste like sansho (山椒, Japanese pepper, prickly ash pepper, similar to sichuan pepper, one of the oldest spices used in Japan even during the Jyomon Period). Yamada never tasted it when he was in Japan, unfortunately. Here are links showing traditional Japanese salamander dishes such as 山椒魚の串焼き(Speared and grilled salamander) and山椒魚寿司(salamander sushi). The taste is not gamy at all according the website.

http://www2p.biglobe.ne.jp/~RICHARD/ducati/99okukinu.htm

The walking fish are tasty and still eaten in Japan.

A moth-watering Japanese delicasy: (left) grilled salamanders and (right) salamander sushi.

http://www.salamander-candy.com/2006/04/salamander_sushi.htm#trackback

Note: Japanese Giant Salamander is now categorized as “Threatened Species” of International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List. It’s current status is “Near Threatened”. For more information see following website. 

http://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/1273/summ

Japanese Giant Salamander is truly a natural wonder because the rest of the salamanders in Japan are all very small. Yamada strongly recommends people not to miss seeing this true eye-opening wonder and curiosities of nature or the “real” Godzilla (ゴジラ) when they visit the land of the rising Sun.

Note: Godzilla (ゴジラ, Gojira in Japanese) is a kaijū (怪獣, ,fictional Japanese giant monster) from the Godzilla series of science fiction films. He was first seen in the 1954 film Godzilla and, to date, has appeared in 28 films, all of which were produced by Toho Co. Ltd. Being one of the most iconic characters in film history, Godzilla has also appeared in numerous comic books, video games, novels, and in popular culture.

Japanese poster of the first “Movie of the giant monster of hydrogen bomb:Godzilla” movie. 1954.

Note: Yamada had pet salamanders (東京山椒魚, Tokyo Sanshoouo or Tokyo Salamander) which he brought back home from a Boy Scout hiking trip when he was a little child. They grew from tiny fish-like juveniles with large gills, grew arms, grew legs (frog grew legs first), and even produced small banana-shaped egg case with dozens of tiny eggs inside. Yamada bred them as pets for many years until he moved to the United States. The following website features the same species of Yamada’s pets.

Besides the world’s largest salamander, there are several more world’s largest real monsters in Japan. How about a real 13 ft long live and carnivorous spider? This is not a nightmare but a 100% real horror in Japan! This devil-like vicious monster is Japanese Giant Spider Crab (Macrocheira Kaempferi) with the leg span of 4 m (13 ft).  The Japanese Giant Spider Crab can be found in the Pacific Ocean near Japan. They live in depths of 50-300m (150-1000feet). This monster feeds on dead animals including drawn humans, according to real police reports. It is believed to have a life expectancy of up to 100 years.

http://www.vincelewis.net/spider.html

Japanese Giant Spider Crab is a real man-eating giant monster.

Note: These real monsters around him and fictional monsters on the television programs in Japan inspired Takeshi Yamada. It may well be the main reason why he started building quite large scale Cabinet of Natural Curiosities even before going to the kindergarten in Osaka, Japan.

Takeshi Yamada at Museum of World Wonders in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York.

(Photograph by Leslie Van Stelten. November 2, 2006)

Continue to Chapter 7

Copyright by Takeshi Yamada, Museum of World Wonders in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York, October 2007. Revised in August 2008. All Rights Reserved.    

E-mail: yamada108@verizon.net

Special thanks to Dr. Eriko N. Bond, Lauren D. Travis, Maremi Kakushina, Dr. Abraham Morris, and Seara (Sea Rabbit).

Also special thanks to Steve Stickney (Senior Proofreader)

http://www.sideshowworld.com/SSA-15.html

http://www.roguetaxidermy.com/members_detail.php?id=528

http://www.horseshoecrab.org/poem/feature/takeshi.html

http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/events/exhibitions/other/worldwonders.jsp

http://www.timeout.com/newyork/articles/own-this-city/3388/animal-crossing

http://www.villagevoice.com/2006-11-07/nyc-life/the-stuffing-dreams-are-made-of/

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