May 31, 2002

For a Hidden Biodiversity, a Sense of Foreboding

By MALCOLM G. SCULLY

The two-toed amphiuma is one of the largest salamanders in the world -- it can grow to more than two-and-a-half feet in length. It is a strange, black, eel-like creature with vestigial legs and, as Joseph C. Mitchell points out, a nasty bite.

Mitchell, a research biologist at the University of Richmond, makes that point as he struggles to measure and weigh an amphiuma that he and a colleague, C. Todd Georgel, have trapped in a freshwater pond here. After the task is completed, the