Brown or grayish in color and slippery in appearance, it has small golden or bluish dots along its body. The head is very large compared to the body. The upper lip is covered by a fold of skin. Since they lack eyelids, the eyes are bulging and retractable, so they frequently retract them into special cavities, which allow them to clean them and humidify the eyeball. It has two flexible dorsal fins provided with spines that they raise when they feel threatened. These are thin and elongated, acting like small arms when moving through the mud. To move quickly, they make large leaps using their tail as a spring. They lack lungs, but they have special hermetic chambers in the gills that allow them to store water and are used as oxygen reserves; In this way, they can move on land and even climb trees.