Atlas of Amphibians in Tennessee - Austin Peay State University
Wikipedia
AmphibiaWeb - University of California
NatureServe
eNature
University of Michigan Museum of Zoology
Tennessee Amphibians & Reptiles - Matthew Niemiller
The Three-toed Amphiuma is a very unique salamander that lives in West TN and looks more like an eel than anything else. In fact, if you look at the top link, you'll notice that the family is referred to as "conger eels". From what I've read, that was originally supposed to be "Congo eel" (like the country in Africa), but of course we're in the South, so it had to be properly redneck-ized. And thus "conger" was born.Anyway, I have no personal experience with these critters, but I've heard they're quite ferocious. Sandy Echternacht (herpetology professor at UT) said that he or a colleague used to have one and they would "allow" people to feed it fish just so they could watch the unsuspecting victim get bitten. Fun times :-)
Photos by Matthew Niemiller (top) and E.R. Degginger (bottom)
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