Growing to more than two feet long, the hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) is the largest salamander in North America. It’s a slimy amphibian with a flattened head and body that lives under submerged rocks and logs.
Three years of hellbender research conducted by Dr. Michael Freake of Lee University and myriad students and volunteers has answered some questions about hellbenders in the Smokies, but raised others.
First of all, hellbenders are very choosy about where they live. Their entire range is between southern New York and northern Alabama (west to Arkansas). Within this area they are only found in rocky rivers and larger streams with swift, cool, clean, well-oxygenated water. They have very little tolerance for silt or other types of pollution.
Consequently, in most states hellbenders are now listed as threatened or endangered. In Great Smoky Mountains National Park, however, the researchers have discovered that the hellbender is doing OK. The Little River watershed in particular boasts a healthy and dynamic population of hellbenders.
Elsewhere in the Smokies the picture is a bit murkier. Streams like Deep Creek and the Oconaluftee River appear to be ideal habitat, but the researchers have found few of the species there. Because of widespread concern about the status of hellbenders, Freake plans to keep looking for several more years.
Freake says water quality in the Smokies is very good and that his students have even found impressive numbers of hellbender larvae. Elsewhere scientists have been alarmed to find few signs of hellbender reproduction.
Hellbenders are surprisingly long-lived. Individuals over 25 years old have been recorded. The world’s largest hellbender was captured in the Smokies in 1946. It was 29 inches long.
Favorite hellbender foods include crayfish, aquatic insects, and small fish.
Outside the national park, anglers using bait occasionally catch a hellbender. Anglers who do so should release the frightening-looking but harmless salamanders as quickly as possible. Hellbenders are not poisonous and seldom bite.
The Lee University research is sponsored by grants from the Great Smoky Mountains Conservation Association, the Appalachian Highlands Science and Learning Center, and other sources.
One Comment
I was fortunate but unfortunate to see the hellbender at deep creek but it had seen a better life. It had died and was laying out on a rock. A massaive species of salamander and was intrigued to see it at Deep Creek. My family and have been going up to this national park for over 30 years and this is the first hellbender I have actually seen. I know they arte out there but they may live a little further up river not accesible to campers and most hikers. Would love to get updates from you guys on their lives.