Eastern Hellbender

Lore & Background

The origin of the name 'hellbender' is unclear. The Missouri Department of Conservation says the name 'hellbender' probably comes from the animal's odd look. One theory claims the hellbender was named by settlers who thought 'it was a creature from hell where it's bent on returning.' Another rendition says the undulating skin of a hellbender reminded observers of 'horrible tortures of the infernal regions.' In reality, it's a harmless aquatic salamander. In 1802, while traveling through the Holston Valley in present-day North Carolina and Virginia, French explorer François Michaux encountered a giant salamander and recorded that enslaved African American men in the area referred to it as a 'hellbender,' indicating the name was already in common use. Other vernacular names include snot otter, lasagna lizard, devil dog, mud-devil, mud dog, water dog, grampus, Allegheny alligator, and leverian water newt. The generic name, Cryptobranchus, is derived from the Ancient Greek kryptos (hidden) and branchion (gill). The subspecies name bishopi honors the American herpetologist Sherman C. Bishop.

In Their Own Story

The hellbender's life is one of patience and ambush. It has very poor eyesight, so it depends on special sensory nodes that run in a line on the body from head to tail, capable of sensing the slightest vibrations around it. Adult hellbenders and maturing individuals with nonexistent or shrinking gill slits have developed a system for bidirectional flow suction feeding under water. They start by moving to their prey very slowly, then once close enough, the salamander abruptly gapes its mouth open. The gaping motion causes a great increase in the velocity of the water straight ahead of them compared to water coming in from the sides of their mouth, possible because of their large, wide, and flat upper and lower jaws. This process causes the prey to shoot back into their mouths as well as a copious amount of water. They then close their mouths, but leave a small gap between their upper and lower lips so that the captured water can escape.

Reader's Guide

Hellbenders are found in clear, clean water, and their presence is an indicator that the water is of good quality. The hellbender salamander, considered a 'habitat specialist', has adapted to fill a specific niche within a very specific environment, and is labeled as such 'because its success is dependent on a constancy of dissolved oxygen, temperature and flow found in swift water areas', which in turn limits it to a narrow spectrum of stream/river choices. As a result of this specialization, hellbenders are generally found in areas with large, irregularly shaped, with intermittent rocks that are not embedded in the substrate and swiftly moving water, while they tend to avoid wider, slow-moving waters with muddy banks and/or slab rock bottoms. This specialization likely contributed to the decline in their populations, as collectors could easily identify their specific habitat.

Did You Know?

• The hellbender is the largest salamander in North America, growing up to 74 cm (29 in) in total length.
• Hellbenders absorb oxygen from water through capillaries in their lateral skin folds, not through gills as adults.
• Eastern hellbender populations are declining quickly across most of their range, with nearly 80% declining or disappearing.
• The hellbender has been present in its ecosystem for around 65 million years.