mud puppies – Lee Duigon

A number of people have expressed confusion over whether the large salamanders called “mud puppies” really are puppies. Sometimes this leads to unsuitable gifts for small children.

Real puppies are warm and fluffy and playful. Mud puppies are cold, wet, and apt to bite really hard. There is no truth to the belief that they grow up into dogs. Mud puppies they are, and mud puppies they shall remain.

You are unlikely to find real puppies swimming around under the ice in winter. What you’d be seeing under those circumstances are almost certain to be mud puppies.

And there really is no point in trying to train them to do tricks. They don’t like it.

Hi, Mr. Nature here with a critter from another world–the mud puppy.

These big salamanders keep their gills all their lives, and although cold-blooded, they seem to thrive in a really chilly environment. Their legs aren’t much for propelling them efficiently when on the land, but these puppies are fast and graceful swimmers. They’ll eat whatever live food they can catch, and have been known to plague ice fishermen.

Why am I showing you this hideous creature? Well, I’m fascinated by these animals. They’re God’s stuff, and they move me to reflect on the infinite options available to God as He was creating the world. It didn’t have to be the world we know today. Fossils show us there were once amphibians, like the mud puppy, as big as crocodiles.

The next time we question what God did do, we might also spare a thought for what He might have done–but didn’t.