The Penis Snake (Atretochoana eiselti)

Hello everyone, am here to introduce a very strange but fascinating creature i stumbled upon while doing some research online. This creature has been dubbed many names by the media because of its resemblance to you know what. It's been called names from the manconda to the penis snake and even floppy snake.

Image Source

This creature is neither a penis nor a snake. It's actually a snake-like amphibian. The creature who goes by the bionomial name Atretochoana eiselti is the largest tetrapod to lack lungs. It is classified as a caecillian(which are limbless amphibians with snake like bodies. An example is the earthworm). The atretochoana is the largest known Cecilian, attaining a length of 81cm (32 inches).It is known to be an aquatic creature.

Image Source

It has very unique features that differentiates it from animals it is closely related to. It's skull is broad which gives it a flat head, it has no nostrils and an enlarged mouth.It also has no eyes and navigates primarily through smell.Most Cecilians have properly developed lungs but the atretochoana doesn't.

The atretochoana was first discovered in 1945, known to have originated from South America. There wasnt really a lot of known information about it because it is rare. A holotype was made and placed in a museum after it was described by Edward Taylor in 1968. The description was brief and concentrated mainly on it's external morphology. In 1990, it was rexamined by a zoologist Dr Ronald A Nassbaum from Michigan University. This was when it was discovered that the large atretochoana had no lungs, making it the largest species of tetrapods known to science to lack lungs. A major description was then made of the creature in 1995.A second specimen was finally recorded in 1998 around a river in Brazil.

In 2012, A family of 6 atretochoana were discovered by engineers building a dam in the Amazon. It was discovered while draining a portion of the Madeira river. Of the 6 seen,one died sadly.Three were released back into the wild and 2 were kept for further research.
Till date, it's population still isn't known because it has only been cited 3 times in history. It is still classified as data deficient because there's still a lot of unknown information about it.No one even knows how it breathes as it has no nostrils or lungs; although it is suspected that it breathes through it's skin but this hasn't been ascertained yet.

Atretochoana like most amphibians mainly feed on small fish, worms and other aquatic invertebrates. It's a bit distressing that the rare animal was found in an area that is prone to thorough ecological disturbance; due to the dams being built in the amazon. A total of 20 dams are scheduled to be built before the year 2020.A lot of biologists feel that the disturbance could lead to the loss of a lot of vital and rare creatures including the atretochoana.

I hope you have found the atretochoana as fascinating as I did.

Thank you for reading.

---

Until my next post,

Stay healthy.

@melanie00

---

All image Sources are stated in text.

---

Text Sources:

Source 1

Source 2

Source 3

Source 4