Giant Salamanders Are Attacking Kyoto

Remember the documentary I mentioned that Hiroko and I were filming on the subject of Japanese amphibians? Now the full story can be told. Hiroko and I spent several months last year criss-crossing the country in search of the elusive Japanese Giant Salamander, a.k.a. the Hanzaki. Many thanks go to Professor Akira Mori of Kyoto University, Keitaro Hamabe of Digital Frontier, and the generally salamander-crazed Tim Johnson for help along the way. Literally days and weeks worth of footage had to be condensed into a five minute segment about the dangers facing these gentle giants of Japan.

The behind the scenes adventures would make a documentary in and of themselves: late one night, using a night-vision camera to hunt for specimens in a stream just outside of Kyoto, a moth decided to fly directly into my ear canal. There is nothing like knowing that there is a living thing INSIDE YOUR HEAD, and that it is intent on DIGGING ITSELF DEEPER, while standing waist deep in some Godforsaken stream in the middle of the night. Here's the best part: as I stumbled back to shore, alternately screaming and slamming my fist into the side of my head in a desperate attempt to dislodge the little bastard before it reached my brain or something, I stumbled across a salamander. The footage Hiroko took of it turned out to be one of the high points of the segment. So it goes. Postscript: unable to dislodge Mothra's spawn, I needed to undergo a series of incredibly uncomfortable and highly traumatic medical procedures to remove its corpse from my ear.

Anyway, here's the good news. National Geographic bought the footage! It's going to be airing as the final segment on episode 410 of "Wild Chronicles" this month. The bad news is: I have no idea when said episode is actually airing in your area, since it differs from cable company to cable company. It's going to be sometime this month -- check your local listings and program your TiVos.

Comments

[thomas]

Was your fight with Mothra-Junior cut out of the footage? I can imagine that explaining THAT particular bit to the viewers might be somewhat troublesome (and get a few laughs from the audience)...

Will you post a Youtube fragment of the footage once it has been released?

I'm sad to say that my first sighting of a giant salamander was the Chinese version in an aquarium at the zoo of Amsterdam about 10-15 years ago - IIRC with a slightly mistranslated sign stating it could get 5-6 *meters* long (instead of *foot*).

[ryan]

Hopefully it'll an award of some kind, and you can stand
solemnly at a podium to accept it and say:

"Thank you. This project cost me a great deal of personal pain."

But seriously, congratulations.

[Bridget]

um. what kind of moth tries to dig itself into your head?!!!

[MattAlt]

A little brown one. Gives me the shivers just thinking about it. Fortunately it wasn't this size....

http://eco.goo.ne.jp/nature/unno/diary/200603/1142900439.html

[Common Japanese words]

Wow! congratulations. I was just watching a documentary on giant salamanders a few weeks ago. I wonder if it was your footage.

[Dylan Moss]

IDIOTS! They are unharmful,curious creatures.

[MattAlt]

Did anyone suggest otherwise?

[Roy Berman]

I also have a moth-in-ear story. A few years back I was with my friends Steve and Rick in Steve's car. We stopped by Rick's house so he could grab his wallet out of his car before we go for dinner and as soon as he opens the car door and sticks his head in he jumps, screams "guys I'm going to the hospital, follow me there" and takes off.

Steve and I follow in complete puzzlement and upon arrival find out that a moth, which had been flying around inside the car, managed to find its way into Rick's ear canal as soon as he got in the car. We waited with him for something like an hour as he paced back and forth mumbling "I can hear it flapping" and occasionally sticking his ear under the water fountain, until a doctor finally saw him, killed the moth by squirting some novacaine into his ear canal, and then washing out the corpse with a series of syringes of water.

Sadly, although I have a moth in ear story, I have yet to see a live giant salamander, although your National Geographic footage was quite awesome. Good work!

[MattAlt]

It's supposedly -- according to my ear doctor, anyway -- a surprisingly common affliction. I'm surprised the moth lived that long in his ear; mine died within a few minutes. I hear it's worse with small beetles, which can survive getting stuck in the wax longer than soft-bodied moths. I am going to be wearing a mesh head mask for any future forays.