North America's biggest salamanders, hellbenders can grow as long as 2.5 feet
Posted on 08/23/2010 10:50:49 AM PDT by JoeProBono
It may be a shot in the dark, but freezing sperm is one of the last chances to save the hellbender, North America's biggest salamander, conservationists say.
Hellbenders—also known as snot otters and devil dogs—have dwindled throughout their range, which once encompassed streams from northeastern Arkansas to New York.
The 2.5-foot-long (0.7-meter-long) amphibians have declined by 80 to 90 percent in most of their traditional watersheds in recent decades, and healthy populations now haunt only isolated pockets of southern Appalachia (see map) and Pennsylvania, said Dale McGinnity, curator of reptiles at Nashville Zoo.
All of the states in the hellbender's range have protected the species, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is currently reviewing whether to give the hellbender federal protection, McGinnity said.
The reasons for their decline is unknown, but it's likely environmental contaminants such as pesticides are harming the creatures via their highly permeable skin, he said.
To make matters worse, hellbenders don't seem to be breeding much in the wild, he said, possibly because human-made pollutants containing synthetic hormones are damaging the amphibians' reproductive systems. Pollutants may also be harming the species' eggs or larvae.
As a result, there are apparently very few wild hellbenders in existence, leaving mostly aged individuals—the amphibians live at least 30 years and could live much longer.
(See photos of vanishing amphibians in National Geographic magazine.)
The hellbender's decline spurred an international team to collect sperm from some captive salamanders in September 2009 for cryopreservation, a common zoo practice that freezes sperm without damaging its cell membranes.
Though several zoos have put a "great deal of effort" into breeding the amphibians in captivity, none has been particularly successful, McGinnity added. It's unclear why they're tough to breed.
"For the first time, sperm was collected from a living salamander, cryopreserved, and brought back to life," said McGinnity, who is involved in the sperm-preservation effort with colleagues from Belgium's Antwerp Zoo and Michigan State University......
North America's biggest salamanders, hellbenders can grow as long as 2.5 feet
Why must you do this to good people? Why?
I googled “snot otter Helen Thomas” and that’s what came up. Sorry. :O)
Aw, c’mon, don’t compare the snot guy to Helen, the otter has it all over Helen.
Looks like they`ll be collecting some special order “snot” from the “Snot Otters”.
ping
so you oppose strip mining Stormer?
Kind of hard to read “snott otter” and “sperm” the same sentence and not think it is humor..
This is, at the very least, a contender for the strangest headline, ever.
...."and to think I cudda avoided reading this headline before my daily cup of tapioca pudding"
ping
Dude, get a look at him...who would want to?
To top that off, can you imagine "Hey baby, my name is Snot Otter. How do you like me so far?"
Hellbender sperm-cell tail, with characteristic "corkscrew" tissue
Not specifically. I am opposed to the unnecessary and long term damage to entire watersheds due to inadequate protective measures and poor management.
I’ve heard of choking chickens, but...
Yet, without any evidence or facts/data (admitted in the article) the “conservationists” automatically blame humans for their demise.
They will now scream for knee-jerk reactions that will really harm humans in some way to try to keep this species alive.
Do they not know they are trying to stop the evolutionary cycle they so soundly tout?
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