"The naughty bits of a Snot Otter"
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......
Thanks for your concern about us. Amphibians have been around for hundreds of millions of years, long before there were any primates, whether 0bammunists or conservatives. Evolution prepared them for natural hazards, but not for things which arose within a century or less. I am happy to have helped my slimy ancestral kin across roads, but I cannot help them deal with the chemical assaults of so-called civilization.
What is conservatism? If it is not affirmative of life in all its forms, I have little interest in it. We humans need to look at our impact on the rest of creation, realizing that our lust to consume is not necessarily the ultimate value in the eyes of our Creator, nor in our own interest. God entrusted us with the care of the created world. That is a profound burden. He has clearly told us that our wealth and luxury are of no importance. How then should we live?
“Us slippery amphibians got to stick together!”
Like we have any choice in that matter, considering....:))
"The naughty bits of a Snot Otter"
Let's remember that we are all children of Him who left us in control of His creation, with the understanding that we would be judged on how we dealt with that responsibilty.
“Chi-com Giant Salamander” might have too many characters for FR...but six feet long!!!
Freegards
Check out what a hellbender is. Some people used to think that it was some kind of theological statement. As much as I wish I could defeat or even deflect the power of Hell, that is not granted to me.
Not a bad idea...
I don't care "what most folks here" think...
Non sequitur...
oh please.
of course you don’t care...you are just here to remonstrate this forum as a racist bigoted lot at every turn
and linking from a site that equates Holocaust denial with being anti-environmentalist and bashes just anyone to the right of Jimmy Carter is of course no issue to you
irony is that wherever you actually live...you race baiters never fess up...you probably are considered a right winger since you’ll take lower taxes if you can get them
but what culture war right?
Just what are you trying to prove? I have been here on FR for years. I have been a conservative for decades. I was part of the Goldwater for President movement. Where were you then?
I still don't see what your quarrel with me is based on. We are faced with an existential battle with the Marxist Left and the Muslim movement. Yet you pick a fight with me. Why?
[LOL]
[LOL]
People definitely were responsible for that, not “evolution”.
By the very etymology of the word, you'd *think* conservatives would be all for conserving things, wouldn't you?
I am.
[as has my whole family been for centuries, before liberals hijacked the notion and made it into a psycho-circus of onerous legislation]
People definitely were responsible for that, not “evolution”.
By the very etymology of the word, you'd *think* conservatives would be all for conserving things, wouldn't you?
I am.
[as has my whole family been for centuries, before liberals hijacked the notion and made it into a psycho-circus of onerous legislation]
Pfffft.
You’re the one late to the party.
I’ve known Hellbender since we ‘met’ long ago on other amphibian threads.
8:P
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