Meet the hellbender, your official amphibian
Ben Moyer
A naturalist with the French Creek Valley Conservancy displays a hand-captured hellbender to a group of paddlers on French Creek in Crawford County.
Photo courtesy of Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Abby Hebenton, a member of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation无毛视频檚 Student Leadership Council (SLC) in Pennsylvania, admires an Eastern hellbender at the Pittsburgh Zoo.
Some people would call them ugly, and there would be no way to refute that because beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Others might say they无毛视频檙e scary and no one could argue because fear is personal. And some even claim they无毛视频檙e dangerous. But that claim is different. It无毛视频檚 dead wrong.
Most people though have never even seen one, don无毛视频檛 know they exist, which is an odd thing to note about an official state symbol. Well, it无毛视频檚 almost a state symbol. On Tuesday of this week, the state House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly 无毛视频淵es无毛视频� on Senate Bill 9. The Senate had already passed the measure so, only Governor Wolf无毛视频檚 signature is needed to officially designate the hellbender, North America无毛视频檚 largest salamander, as Pennsylvania无毛视频檚 official state amphibian.
It无毛视频檚 a good candidate because the hellbender lives无毛视频搊r once lived无毛视频搕hroughout all but the eastern third of the state. Hellbenders are known to inhabit our area. They live in streams, and only those streams with cold clean water无毛视频搈uch like wild trout. They无毛视频檝e been found in most of the larger streams on Laurel Ridge and even in the upper tributaries of Wheeling Creek in Greene County. Surprisingly, there are no official records of the species in Fayette County streams but their known range surrounds Fayette, so they must be here, somewhere, or once were.
Hellbenders are, admittedly, somewhat bizarre in appearance. The larger females can approach two feet in length and both sexes are covered by smooth dark skin that gathers in flabby folds along the sides and under the chin. The head is as broad and flat, and the mouth is proportionally huge. Four stubby legs, also enveloped in folds of loose skin, poke out from the sides. The flabby skin is vital. Hellbenders live their entire lives underwater, but they have no gills. These big salamanders 无毛视频渂reathe无毛视频� through their skin, which explains why they prefer cold streams, which hold more dissolved oxygen than warm, sluggish waters. The skin-folds increase surface area, allowing them to absorb more oxygen from the water.
Hellbenders are most active at night, when they prowl the stream bottom in search of crayfish, their favorite food. They will sometimes eat other things, though, which explains why I remember other anglers catching them on big juicy nightcrawlers while fishing for trout on Laurel Hill Creek, many years ago. This was early in the trout season, when the water is cold, so the trout were down deep and inactive. So, fishermen would bait up with a big nightcrawler and cinch a couple of sinkers on their line and let it drift along the bottom of Laurel Hill无毛视频檚 deep holes. Sometimes that bait would drift within reach of a hellbender lurking under a big flat rock无毛视频搕heir favored refuge sites. You can无毛视频檛 blame a big salamander for gulping a juicy worm that tumbles within reach.
Those accidental hellbender captures always incited a streamside ruckus. First, the 无毛视频渓ucky无毛视频� angler couldn无毛视频檛 believe the fight of this huge 无毛视频渢rout无毛视频� he无毛视频檇 hooked. When he dragged the big, sprawling, crawling amphibian onto the bank, you could just bet he无毛视频檇 exclaim, 无毛视频淭hose things are poisonous,无毛视频� and the aftermath was never pretty. It was a chance for that angler to be a hero and rid the world of a misunderstood threat, and those heroes would never heed the objections of a kid who无毛视频檇 read about hellbenders and knew they were harmless.
Speaking of kids who know about the hellbender, the story of how the species reached the threshold of becoming an official symbol of the Keystone State is an inspiring one.
Over two years ago, high school students active in the Chesapeake Bay Foundation无毛视频檚 Student Leadership Council began studying the hellbender and spreading the word about its importance to the Chesapeake Bay无毛视频搘hich is hundreds of miles downstream from its highland haunts. The students reasoned that if headwaters and tributaries of the Susquehanna River, which contributes half of all the Chesapeake无毛视频檚 fresh water, could support hellbenders, then the downstream bay would be healthier.
They wrote the language for the original Senate bill designating its official status and took their concept to Harrisburg and knocked on doors in the Capitol. Senator Gene Yaw of Lycoming County took up their cause and sponsored legislation. Now, those students无毛视频� long effort to call attention to this 无毛视频渃anary in the mine无毛视频� of clean water is nearly complete.
无毛视频淭he passing of this bill is sure to allow hellbenders to breathe easier in the near future and give them a better chance of survival 无毛视频� not to mention a better chance for a clean water legacy in Pennsylvania,无毛视频� said Emma Stone, President of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation无毛视频檚 (CBF) Student Leadership Council (SLC) in Pennsylvania. 无毛视频淢y fellow student leaders and I thank our representatives for their support of the hellbender bill. We are one step closer to cleaner water because of it.无毛视频�
Ben Moyer is a member of the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association and the Outdoor Writers Association of America.