External Appearance

External appearance  Its length about 20-30cm long (eel like)  Vissible organs through the skin  Large, flat head with rounded snout.  white, pale-gray, pink, or creamy-yellow

Kingdom:

Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

body 

large pink, feathery external gills.

Life  The olm can live without food for

YEARS!!  Can get as old as 60 years  Very strong senses  Almost blind  Remaining: N/A

10

Class: Amphibia Subclass: Lissamphibia Order:

Caudata

Family: Proteidae Genus: Species: Anguinus

Proteus

 The Olm, in the beginning of there life, they grow up on the surface. On the

surface there eyes fully functions and get brown skin. As they get older they start moving to underground caves and get a pink yellowish skin. Because its dark there eyes are less usefull to them and a thin layer of skin grows over it. After there eyes dont function at all but they‘re still there, allthough now a part of it is missing.  Because of the pink skin and there small thin arms and legs they are also so

called the human fish.  A salamander can live for 100 years. It can also livve or survive without

food for longer than 6 years.  The little red etrnal gills are colored red because that is the bloosd flowing

through. Olms have a translucent skin.

The Olm’s habitat requirements are places where there are underground caves containing water . But even with a perfect habitat it will always stay a rare specie. Although the Olm is relatively safe from habitat destruction, unlike many surface animals do. But much of the water that fills the underground caves flows in from the surface, where it can become contaminated by pollutants, such as industrial waste. It is believed that pollution is a major factor in the reduction of the Olm population. To help prevent this we have to stop creating pollutants and stop dumping our waste into the waters of the earth. Prevent factories being close to rivers and water supply.

Olms are now a severely threatened species for a number of reasons. First of all they were such a unique species that the scientist of the past three hundred years were absolutely amazed with. This led to collection. Olms were captured and sent off alive to collectors. They became famous. Some pig farmers in the region were rumored to have collected them to use as cheap pig food. Now they have become a tourist attraction. Tourism has been used to aware people of the Olm. Tourism though has gone too far. Waste is started to be dumped in there habitat and they are feeling threatened.

THANK YOU http://www.showcaves.com/english/explain/Biology/ProteusAnguinus.html http://www.essortment.com/all/olm_rbka.htm http://bestuff.com/stuff/olm http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Olm http://e-day.org.uk/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=uMXGjch1I74%3D&tabid=111