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"Living fossil" faces extinction The number of Xinjiang Salamander, an endangered amphibian native to Xinjiang, decreased by a quarter to 3,000 in the past four years, according to statistics from local experts. The figures were released by Wang Xiuling, a salamander expert with the Xinjiang Normal University. Wang, together with other professionals, carried out a survey in Wenquan County, the major habitat for the Xinjiang salamander, from May to June this year. The amphibian has been regarded as the "living fossil" because it had coexisted with the dinosaurs about 300 million years ago. They live only in streams at the border of China and Kazakhstan at present. The creature was first discovered by a Russian biologist in Xinjiang in 1866. Many other experts failed to find any of them in the following century. Wang rediscovered the creature when a student brought her a "four-footed fish" from his hometown Wenquan County in 1989, and the surveys Wang carried out then showed the number at two places in Xinjiang exceeded 8,000. After the Xinjiang Salamander was placed under government protection, herdsmen have been prevented from catching and selling them. Nevertheless, global warming has made their habitats degenerated, leaving many streams dried, she said. Xinjiang set up the Wenquan Regional Salamander Nature Reserve in 1997. Wang and her colleagues called for establishment of a state-level nature reserve to protect this rare species from extinction. The primitive creature was born with fishlike gills and lungs. The lizard-like creature is about 15 to 20 centimeters long and appears greenish on land and brownish in water.
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