Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff Lauren vocal Bomb. Here picture a remote freshwater
Speaker 1: stream somewhere in the eastern United States. The water is cool,
Speaker 1: there's a reasonably fast current, and the bottom is littered
Speaker 1: with big flat rocks. Sounds peaceful, doesn't it. What you're
Speaker 1: imagining is a perfect environment for trout and for something
Speaker 1: else too. Every so often, anglers who cast their lines
Speaker 1: in such places wind up catching North America's biggest salamander.
Speaker 1: This thing leaves an impression. Specimens measuring twees long that's
Speaker 1: seventy three have been documented, and the beefiest adults wagh
Speaker 1: four to five pounds that's about two to two and
Speaker 1: a half kilos. These four legged amphibians have compressed heads
Speaker 1: and torsos, meaning that, judging by outward appearance, could think
Speaker 1: someone had squished these critters flat with a rolling pin.
Speaker 1: Another key attribute is their browned to grayish skin, which
Speaker 1: hangs noticeably loose around their flanks. Early settlers didn't know
Speaker 1: what to make of these guys. Baffled by their appearance,
Speaker 1: some folks began calling them snot otters, devil dogs, or
Speaker 1: mud devils. The species wouldn't receive its formal scientific name
Speaker 1: Crypto branches alleganiensis until eight o three, but nowadays most
Speaker 1: people know this strange salamander as the hell bender. Hellbenders
Speaker 1: are divided into two subspecies. Northern Arkansas and southern Missouri
Speaker 1: are the home of the endangered Ozark hell bender. The
Speaker 1: eastern hellbender has a broader distribution, having spread itself across
Speaker 1: the Greater Appalachian region and parts of the Midwest, though
Speaker 1: sadly it's also got conservationists worried. Some amphibians are equally
Speaker 1: at home on land and in the water, but hellbenders
Speaker 1: are more or less totally aquatic. Their skin absorbs oxygen,
Speaker 1: pulling it straight out of the water. That leaves hellbenders
Speaker 1: at the mercy of pollutants and the excess silt and
Speaker 1: runoff dumped into their streams by forest clearing projects. Sure
Speaker 1: it doesn't help. One report published in two thousand seven
Speaker 1: by the US Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that the
Speaker 1: ozark hellbender will become functionally extinct by the year twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six in less protective measures are taken. As of
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, it was still classified as endangered by the
Speaker 1: US Fish and Wildlife Service, which has said that, in
Speaker 1: some good news, most populations of the Eastern hellbender are
Speaker 1: not in danger of extinction and therefore do not warrant
Speaker 1: listing under the Endangered Species Act. To help boost populations
Speaker 1: of the Ozark hellbender, the St. Louis Zoo teamed up
Speaker 1: with the Missouri Department of Conservation and established a successful
Speaker 1: breeding program in twenty eleven, and just last year, Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: raised awareness about this wonderful species by naming the Eastern
Speaker 1: hellbender its official state amphibian. Maybe such efforts will improve
Speaker 1: the salum enders pr There's a pervasive belief that the
Speaker 1: hellbender has a venomous bite, but this is untrue. The
Speaker 1: hellbender wield no venom, and despite rumors to the contrary,
Speaker 1: the amphibians do not hurt game fish populations. Crawfish make
Speaker 1: up over the hellbender's diet. Other potential prey items include tadpoles,
Speaker 1: smaller salamanders, and small fish. The creatures are most active
Speaker 1: at night. They spend their days taking refuge under submerged
Speaker 1: logs or stream bottom rocks. Hellbenders avoid humans, but they
Speaker 1: will aggressively defend their territories against fellow members of their species.
Speaker 1: So unless you are a rival salamander, a potential mate,
Speaker 1: or a yummy crawfish, these beasties would just as soon
Speaker 1: leave you alone. Disposition wise, they couldn't be less hellish.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's time to start calling them heckbenders. Today's episode
Speaker 1: was written by Mark Fancini and produced by Tyler Clang.
Speaker 1: For more on this and lots of other heckish topics,
Speaker 1: visit how stuff works dot com. Green Stuff is a
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