I came across a video on YouTube which reminded me of what happened 49 years ago and the tale that followed. In previous articles I have recounted the appearance of the now critically endangered giant salamanders of China in the zoology department of the University of Hong Kong for class dissection. We took some on to the roof to photograph them before they were killed ready for the students One lunged with its mouth open and snapped at SJP’s hand which she withdrew rather rapidly thus avoiding a bite.
Back down in the lab we were told that John Phillips, the head of department, had been bitten badly by another amphibian, an amphiuma, and that he had, as a result, had a recurring fever which took a long time to go away.
I should say that I have never seen an amphiuma, alive or dead, but to anglers and commercial fishermen in the right part of the USA they are a familiar sight. Amphiumas are eel-like salamanders which can grow to over a metre in length. They are virtually entirely aquatic, living in swamps, lakes and ponds, but will move on land after heavy rain. They are nocturnal and carnivorous.
What was John doing with amphiumas I asked myself, knowing that in the late 1950s or early 1960s it would be something to do with the hormones produced by the adrenal cortex. After a bit of searching I found a reference that provided some of the information. The results were reported as part of a paper given at a symposium on comparative endocrinology held at Cold Spring Harbor in May 1958. John had arrived in the USA in September 1957 after working for his PhD in Liverpool. I cannot be certain whether his encounter with an amphiuma was in Liverpool or shortly after his arrival at Yale on Fellowship of the Commonwealth Fund of New York. I cannot get hold of the paper (published in 1959) but I suspect it did not give much further information on where the various studies were done. Since he is known to have continued his work on adrenocortical secretions in vertebrates at that time, my bet would be Yale. Furthermore, amphiumas were readily available in the USA from biological suppliers.
The amphiuma in question was a Three-toed Amphiuma (Amphiuma tridactylum) easily distinguished by the number of toes on its tiny legs. Its distribution is ‘centered on the lower Mississippi River from Texas to western Alabama, and north to southern Illinois and extreme southwestern Kentucky’. They were and probably still are a source for laboratory suppliers since they are a bycatch from crayfish trapping.
 |
| Three-toed Amphiuma Photo by Ashley Wahlberg (Tubbs) via Flickr |
All descriptions of amphiumas note that they bite savagely as well as being very difficult to handle because of the slimy mucus on the tough skin. It is no wonder amphiumas are called ‘eels’ as in ‘congo eels’, a term derived from conger eels. No wonder John Phillips got bitten and became infected by some pathogen lurking at the bottom of a swamp.
As the following video shows, it is not only when handling amphiumas that they are liable to bite.
Seventy years since John Phillips started his pioneering work there is still active research and discussion on why the adrenal glands of different groups and species of vertebrates produce either or both of the two steroid hormones, cortisol and corticosterone. Indeed, the field is just hotting up again.
*John Guest Phillips FRS.1933-1987.
Chester Jones I, Phillips JG, Holmes WN. 1959. Comparative physiology of the adrenal cortex. In Comparative Endocrinology: Proceedings of the Columbia University Symposium held at Cold Spring Harbor 1958. (ed. A. Gorbman), 582-612. New York: Wiley.
Sandor T. 1969. A comparative survey of steroids and steroidogenic pathways throughout the vertebrates. General and Comparative Endocrinology Supplement 2, 284-298.
Vinson GP, Tait JF. 1988. John Guest Phillips. 13 June 1933-14 March 1987. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 34, 610-637 doi: 10.1098/rsbm.1988.0020
No comments:
Post a Comment