- [Coyote] I got it,
I got it, I got it! Right in the bottom of the net. Hey, Mario. I think this is an amphiuma. Hold on, hold on! - [Mark] It walks? (fast beat tribal music) - [Coyote Voiceover] The
southern tip of Florida is blanketed by a
seemingly endless expanse of swampland known
as the Everglades. This massive, slow-moving
river is a wild place that spans over
1.5 million acres and is home to hundreds
of animal species. During the light of day,
most of these creatures stay hidden from the
sun's scorching rays, yet, as the sun sinks
beyond the western horizon, the hidden come out to hunt
under the cover of darkness. On this sweltering evening, the crew and I are
also on the hunt. Only, our goal isn't
to eat what we catch, but, instead, to educate
you about the fascinating creatures that call this
thriving ecosystem home. During the dry season,
animals congregate in the deeper flows of water, and by following this
consistent vein of hydration, we happen to stumble
upon one of the most bizarre
creatures in Florida. - Well, as you guys can tell, the sun has officially
disappeared, and
darkness has set in. We're in the middle of
the Everglades right now, and I'm standing in a
waterway, check this out. - [Mark] It's a little
soupy down here. - Yeah, it is gonna get soggy. It is gonna get muddy. Now, this is an airboat trail, which is perfect for airboats, and also perfect for
us to walk through, cause it keeps us
out of the saw grass. Now, I wanna head
in this direction, and there are a
number of different creatures we can
come across tonight. I have this small
net with me, and, as you can see, the
water is very murky, and it is also filled with gloppy mud. It's gonna make seeing
animals really difficult, so if there's any
movement, I'm gonna try and scoop it
up with the net. And, with any luck,
we're gonna get some cool creatures up
close for the cameras. You guys ready to
start the adventure? - [Mark] Let's do it. - All right, here we
go, into the darkness. Now, temperatures
are pretty nice. Oh! That's just mud. Temperatures are
pretty nice tonight, not too, too many mosquitoes. I was afraid we were gonna get
totally eaten alive out here. So far, so good.
- [Mark] That makes me happy. Already getting bit? - [Mario] Not too much. - It is slow moving
through this environment. We're actually right in the
middle of the dry season here in the Everglades,
but even still, point your camera
down here and you see all these plants that
we're moving through? This is thick, constantly
grabbing at your ankles. So far, I've seen nothing. Keep your eyes peeled, guys. There are gonna be
creatures out here. Look at that. A walking stick just showed up on my shirt. The Everglades are definitely
alive with insects tonight. Look at that guy! Go ahead and zoom in. Wow, how cool looking is that? All right, buddy, let's get
you back into the grass. Oh, there you go,
dropped him down there. All right, let's keep heading
through the grass here. Wow, check this out. This entire bush is covered
in lubber grasshoppers. Now, these are
juveniles, look at this. Go ahead and zoom in
on these ones up here, right next to a
little, tiny spiderweb. No, buddy, those are too
big for you to catch. You know what? Let me pick one off
of there real quick and let's take a
good look at it. Come here, buddy. Got him. Oh, and that one
jumped down there. Come check this out. Just gonna set it
out on my hands, see if it'll stay
there for a second. Look at the beautiful
coloration on this insect. Okay. Look at that. Wow! Looks like he was painted
with one of those machines, oh! that makes stripes down
the middle of the freeway with that yellow line down
the center of its back. There, let me get
him again here. That's a pretty cool
little insect right there. I wish it was, oh! Oh, he's spittin' on me! Oh! Stinks! All right, well, we'll let
him back to his business. Now let's keep searching
for bigger creatures. Oh, guys, an eel, an eel! - [Mark] You got something? - [Coyote] I got it,
I got it, I got it! - [Mark] What do you got?
- It's an eel! Right in the bottom of the net. I got it, come up
here, come up here! Oh, oh, oh, there's his head,
it's coming out right there! Move back, back, back, back! Wow! That is so cool! - [Mark] All I can see is mud. - [Coyote] Point your
camera, no, no, no, look it. There's the side of
its body right there. - [Mark] Whoa! - Oh, it's filling like the
entire bottom of the net. Wow! All right, let's take it
back up onto this dry spot. Here, Mario, get that, - [Mark] Here, Mario, I'll--
- [Coyote] get that container. Yeah, Mark, hand him
that camera here. Mark's still trying
to get that shot. Look at that. Wow! He's not being too,
too crazy active. Oh, look there, it's
starting to move. Look at that! Nice! Actually, that's not an eel. - [Mark] What is it, a catfish? - No. Dude, Mario! - [Mario] Yeah? - I think this is an amphiuma. Is that how you say it? Am... - [Mario] Amphiuma. - Amphiuma, amphiuma. - [Mario] Let me see.
- Dude, I don't think this is an eel at
all, look at this! - [Mario] Oh, yeah, dude,
that's totally an amphiuma. - Is it really? - [Mario] Yeah.
- [Coyote] No way! Okay, guys, this is not an eel. - [Mark] What is it?
- It's actually a huge salamander. - [Mario] Yeah, look, I got
this little bucket of water. - Okay, here, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's get in here, back
up a little bit further. - [Mario] Oh! - [Coyote] Here, here,
here, hold on, hold on. Don't let it get out. Don't let it get out. Keep the net over the top of it. - [Mario] That's an amphiuma.
- Holy cow! Okay, we have caught a really
good-sized, huge salamander. This is almost like a
hellbender in a sense, but you'll oftentimes find them
in muddy ditches like this. This is crazy, okay! Little bit of chaos there. Wow! All right, let's back
up a little bit further. They're extremely quick. I definitely don't want it
to get back into the water. Let's find a dry spot up here and get it up closer
to the cameras. - [Mario] Sweet!
- Whoa! That is so cool! Let's just mat this down. - [Mark] So,
basically, we're all standing on like a
big sponge right now. - Oh, yeah, we're gonna be sunk up to our knees
before we know it, but I wanted us to have
a good, flat platform to be able to look
at this amphibian. Okay, it's gonna be
really tough to handle, just like an eel
or a hellbender. It is a very fragile amphibian. Again, an amphibian,
it's a big salamander, it is not an eel at all, but, oftentimes, these are
mistaken for eels. Now, it's gonna be almost
impossible to hold onto, so I'm gonna see if I can get it to just lay flat in my hands. Come here, buddy. I do want to be
careful, because they can give you a
pretty nasty bite. - [Mark] All right,
guy, you're gonna have to give me the name
of this one more time. What is it called? - It is an amphiuma. Amphiuma. All right, let me see if I can, whoa, hold on! Hold on, hold on! Okay, just let it
hang out for a second. That's actually good. We want it to do just that.
- [Mark] It's walking! It walks?
- [Coyote] It does. It has small, vestigial legs, and what it'll actually
try to do is burrow down. We don't want that to happen. Come here, buddy, let
me bring you back up. Okay, it is really,
really hard to hold onto. I wanna sort of cradle
it in my arms if I can. It's gonna be really tough
for you guys to get shots. Okay, I'm gonna have to kind of hold it up close to
my body like this. Let's see, calm down. Oh, it's sliming me. You know what? It's gonna be impossible to
hold onto, just like the eel. I'm gonna actually keep it
in the bucket for a second. Look at that! Now, all of that mucus
that's on my gloves, Mark, I'd say put your hands
out there and touch that, but (gloves squishing) do you hear that? - [Mark] I'm good.
- Yeah. That is a defensive
tactic right there, makes it more slippery, impossible for a
predator to hold onto. Actually, what I
might be able to do is place it on the underside, oh, oh, look, he's coming
up out of the thing here! Let me see if I can
actually place it on the flat of my backpack here. - [Mark] We have
an escape artist. - That's okay, let
him out for a second, and I'm gonna place
him right here and see if we can get
him to just stay put. Oh, they are quick! All right, buddy, let me see,
real gentle, real gentle. There we go, there we go. All right, look at that. Look at the pointy
nature of its snout. Now, these things are
incredibly good at burrowing down into
the mud and the muck. Now, oftentimes, you'll
come across these in, believe it or not, ditches. They like to bury
themselves under leaves. They stay in shallow water, and they're hunting
for crayfish. Wow, an amphiuma! This is a creature that
I have never seen before. I definitely thought
it was an eel. You can easily see how you
would confuse it with an eel, but, like I said, this
is, indeed, an amphibian, a very large salamander,
similar to the hellbender. Actually, one of the largest salamander species in the world, they can grow to nearly
50 inches in length. Look at that, look
at the way that it slinks along the backpack. They have an incredible
ability to sense things in their environment
because, just like a fish, they have a lateral
line that runs down the entire
length of their body. So, right now, what he's
feeling is this little groove, and he's saying, "Okay,
this is a good spot to hide. "If I don't move, no
one's gonna eat me." Don't worry, buddy, we're
not gonna try to eat you. - [Mark] Oh, there he goes! - Come on back down this way. Here he comes, here
he comes, right there! Look at that. - [Mark] So this is an
amphibian, so it can, it can be out of the
water, then, I'm assuming. - [Coyote] Yes,
not for too long. Now, different from
some salamander species, these salamanders actually
have fully developed lungs and they can stay
out of the water for a considerable
amount of time. Look at that, you
can actually see it taking breaths of
air right there. You know, I'm going get him back into the bucket of water here. Here we go, buddy. Okay. Here we go. I'm gonna keep the gloves on, and that's not because I'm
using them to handle the animal, honestly, it's just
making it more slippery. But they actually have teeth. Imagine that, a salamander
having a pretty powerful bite! These have a double row
of teeth on the top jaw and a very sharp row of
teeth on the lower jaw, and they can give
you quite a chomp. - [Mark] Really, that can
bite you really badly? - Oh, yeah, and not
only do they bite, but when they bite onto things,
they bite and they spin, almost like a death roll
that a crocodile would do, and actually take a
chunk out of your skin. - [Mark] There it is. - There he is. Now, I've actually read
that if these things are eaten by a predator,
they will give off a death cry, sort
of like a rabbit. You know when a rabbit
gets eaten by something and you hear that screaming? I've actually heard
that these things are capable of making a
pretty high-pitched noise. Oh, man, this is
so cool looking. Now, you may be looking at
a creature like this and saying to yourself, "What
does this salamander eat?" They actually specialize
in eating crayfish, but they will also
take small fish, frogs, and, occasionally,
even little snakes. All right, Mario, go ahead
and zoom in on the eyes there. Look at that, they're
almost clouded. Those are vestigial, which
means that they hardly use them. They can sense a
little bit of light, but it looks as if
there's almost a scale or a skin layer over the top of them that keeps them protected. They do not have eyelids
like some amphibian species. - [Mark] Now, are these
rare or are they common? - I mean, I would
consider them rare, but it's more that
they're elusive. I mean, they are out there, it's just a matter of
being in the exactly the right place at
exactly the right time. And what I saw in
the water was just sort of movement
through the grasses, saw just the shape of its
body and, immediately, my instinct said,
"Oh, it's an eel. "Scoop it up with the net." Never in a million years
did I think that we were gonna come across
a creature like this. But how cool was that,
finding an amphiuma right here in the
Florida Everglades? I'm Coyote Peterson. Be brave. Stay wild. We'll see you on
the next adventure. All right, let's get
him back into the canal. Come on, little buddy. Through all my years
exploring the wild and getting up
close with animals, nothing has been more alien-like in appearance than the amphiuma. And despite being one of the largest amphibians in the world, they are seldom seen, and
nearly impossible to catch. So getting this aquatic oddity
up close for the cameras was truly an
incredible encounter. If you thought the
amphiuma was bizarre, make sure to go back
and watch the episode where we manage to catch its
slippery cousin, the caecilian. And don't forget, subscribe, so you can join me and the crew on this season of
Breaking Trail.
