Woohoo, it's hellbender season! ***pic-heavy***

[SallyMander]

Who else is psyched??? :P

Just got my first "Hellbender Squad" email... this means soon I'll be tromping around in lovely places like this:





And looking for these adorable critters! :D








What, you don't think they're cute??? :shrug:

:rofl:

[fizzgig]

1. can i come?

please?

just don't make me touch the slimy things, tho

:P

[SallyMander]

2. Hehee, no problem

More slimy things for me! :D

It really is a blast, and we go to some lovely spots! You'll just have to come to Ohio! :bounce:

[fizzgig]

7. i'll start walking

see you in a month or so :P

[SallyMander]

10. LOL!

I wonder if we could find you DUers to stay with between here and there? It would be an epic journey! :D

[fizzgig]

12. it would be epic indeed

i don't even want to think about walking across nebraska, tho :scared: that state never ends. and that's just when you're in the car :P

[My Good Babushka]

3. They have cute little hands

It's good to see a picture of someone holding one. I never knew how big they were.

[SallyMander]

4. That one I have isn't even a huge one

They get quite a bit bigger. Just amazing! Although they are downright tiny compared to the Chinese and Japanese giant salamanders! :wow:

[Dangerously Amused]

6. OMFG. That thing could run me down and eat me.

:scared:

[SallyMander]

8. Don't worry, it's slow

:D

:hi:

[Dangerously Amused]

11. Maybe so, but with me frozen in fear it would be no contest.

On the plus side, it would give me more time to die of a heart attack before it reached me.

:scared:


:hi:

[Elidor]

5. What's a hellbender? They're cute as hell

Looks like Tennessee. I'm partial to Orconectes Australis Australis.



Photo by a friend of mine. All my Orconectes photos are offline atm.

[SallyMander]

9. It's the largest salamander in the Americas

And quite threatened here in Ohio... so we're surveying to see if there is still good habitat for them that could be protected.

That is a neat looking crayfish (?)... is it a cave-dwelling species? It is so pale!

[Elidor]

13. cave-dwelling albino

Totally sightless - not blind, just no eyes. Native to White County, Tennessee.

[SallyMander]

14. That's really neat

There are similar cave-dwelling blind salamanders -- i think they are super creepy looking! :D

[In_The_Wind]

15. Do they have teeth?

[SallyMander]

16. Very small teeth

You can kind of see them in this photo:



They mostly eat crayfish. :hi:

[In_The_Wind]

18. If they could crunch a crayfish my pinkie toe isn't safe around them.

It sounds like they have little teeth but strong jaws.



Yikes! Maybe I should keep my toes outta the creek for a while.

[SallyMander]

23. Your toes will be safe

as long as you don't stick your feet under the largest boulders you can find. :D

These guys are very shy - we work all day sometimes and don't find any. They spend their time under huge rocks, so you shouldn't worry about it!

:hi:

[Flaxbee]

17. actually, that sounds like fun --

..you're probably in very pretty rural parts of the country for that work. I am completely, utterly disgusted by ticks, but the hellbenders look very cute! Have fun! :hi:

[SallyMander]

24. Yeah, ticks are no fun

We do get to visit some lovely spots! Even when we don't find any hellbenders, it's still a nice way to spend the day! :hi:

[TZ]

19. Okay...

I think I'll just stay with the cute little striped salamanders we have around here; one of my favorite zoo classes in college was going out and digging up the little fellers and measuring body size striped -yellow or red excetera..So going out and the woods to play with the "slimies"..I totally get that...:hi:

[SallyMander]

25. Hmm, I wonder what kind they are?

The most common salamander for people to find in the eastern US is the red-backed salamander. Did they look like this?

[TZ]

30. I think thats them although I think this picture I found

Looks more like them:
http://wwwnew.towson.edu/herpetology/amphibians/Plethodon%20cinereus.htm
It was the lead back vs. red back morphs we were looking at now that I think about it.

[SallyMander]

31. That's what i figured!

They are easy to find - roll a log or lift a rock in deciduous forest, and there they (probably) are! :D

[EstimatedProphet]

20. I didn't think they ranged that far east

They're all over the Ozarks. They were common in the places I went for fieldwork.

[SallyMander]

26. The Ozark hellbender is actually a separate subspecies

We have the plain old eastern hellbender. They actually go east of here into West Virginia and New York state too. They are endangered in Ohio because we like to fill our rivers and creeks with silty runoff from all the agriculture. So they're much more common in WV than they are here.

What was your fieldwork on? :hi:

[EstimatedProphet]

36. At the time, we were looking at smallmouth bass habitat parameters

Nicy gravelly streams with moderate gradient and cover. Very pretty. Damned hot work in the summer.

[BarenakedLady]

21. Sounds like fun.

We found a tiny little orange salamander under the leaves in our yard the other day. The kids were thrilled. We got some pictures. I'll have to upload them.

I thought of you. :)

[SallyMander]

27. Aww, yeah I'd love to see pics!

Might have been a red eft... they are the juvenile stage of the red-spotted newt. They are super adorable - here's are some pics:





:hi:

[BarenakedLady]

29. Yup

Looked like the top one.

Cool, thanks.

:D

[SallyMander]

32. They are so freakin cute

This is what they look like as adults... crazy, huh?

[texas1928]

22. First pic made me think you were hunting ghost.

But NOOOOO, you are hunting slimy things.

[SallyMander]

28. Hehee, no ghost spotting so far

Slimy things are more fun! :D

[texas1928]

33. Used to go hunting in streams like that for Crawdads.

that was fun.

[livetohike]

34. We have them here (Clarion River) but I have yet to see one

:hi:

[SallyMander]

35. They are really hard to find!

You need a posse of strong guys who are willing to lift the most ginormous rocks they can find! :D

:hi: