User:Kevin.vaughey/Chinese giant salamander

This is a strong start to a page regarding the feeding physiology of the Chinese giant salamander. The information is presented in an unbiased manner with accurate references. The information is presented in a bit of a distracting manner. It could be written more precisely or elaborated on to help convey information to a general audience. I found some of the descriptions to distract from the subject matter. Overall the material is important and well structured and does discuss all of the relevant portions of the subject matter.

Feeding[edit]
Adult Chinese giant salamanders and maturing Chinese giant salamanders with shrinking or nonexistent gill slits have developed a system for bidirectional flow suction feeding under water. They start by moving to their prey very slowly, then they abruptly gape their mouths open. The gaping motion of their mouth causes a great increase in the velocity of the water straight ahead of them compared to water coming in from the sides of their mouth. This is possible because of their large, wide, and flat upper and lower jaws. This process causes the prey to shoot back into their mouths, they then abruptly close their mouth to capture the prey.

The Chinese giant salamander catches their prey on land with an asymmetrical bite, so that it will be positioned in such a way that the force created by their jaws will be maximized. They are missing a bone which usually lies along the upper cheek region of most salamanders, this gives them a much stronger bite force. The bite force of the adult Chinese giant salamander is much stronger than the bite force of the maturing Chinese giant salamander.

Chinese giant salamanders esophaguses are made up of four different layers, one of which being a strong muscular tissue. The outer most layer has ciliated cells that move mucous from mucous glands over the surface of the esophagus to lubricate it and reduce friction from large foods such as whole crabs. The ciliated structure and flexibility of the Chinese giant salamander's esophagus is hypothesized to be the reason why it is capable of swallowing such large foods.

Chinese giant salamanders are also capable of fasting for several years if they need too. This is possible because of their liver, which is capable of up regulating and down regulating different proteins according to how long they have been fasting for.