Meet the eastern hellbender, Ohio's largest salamander

 

Meet the eastern hellbender, Ohio's largest salamander

The Columbus Dispatch

October 4, 2026

NATURE

Jim McCormac

A hellbender floats in the water column/Jim McCormac

Ohio’s largest salamander – and one of the world’s largest species – lives in select Ohio streams, but it is almost completely out of sight and mind.

The eastern hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) resides in rocky streams largely free of siltation and other pollution. Prior to European settlement, hellbenders were likely widespread in streams within the Ohio River drainage, and that covers most of the state.

Today, the completely aquatic salamanders are far scarcer, a reflection of how people have treated our waterways. In 1990, the Ohio Division of Wildlife listed this fascinating animal as endangered, and while recovery efforts are bearing fruit, hellbenders remain rare.

Clapping eyes on a big adult hellbender for the first time generally provokes a two-fold reaction: shock and awe. Adults average nearly 20 inches in length and old individuals might reach 2 ½ feet. A behemoth might weigh 5 pounds or more.

But it isn’t just the sheer bulk of this strange amphibian that draws a reaction. A hellbender looks like it was assembled from a spare parts bin from an amphibian factory. The dorsally compressed salamander appears flattened, as if run over by a steamroller. The oversized head houses a disproportionately large mouth and tiny beady eyes. Short stout legs propel the beast, and a large laterally compressed tail helps propel the critter through the water.

Above all, it is the hellbender’s wrinkled skin that holds one’s eye. It is as if the animal is clad in a suit one and one-half times too large that was left wadded up in a closet for 10 years and never saw an iron. All those wrinkles have a purpose, though. Hellbenders respirate through their skin – it is a lung in essence – and the wrinkles increase the surface respiratory area.

The strange appearance of the hellbender has spawned many colloquial names such as "mud devil," "snot otter" and "walking catfish." To me, it resembles an amphibious shar pei dog. But “hellbender” is an odd name too. It apparently stems from the slow, exaggerated side to side movement of the animal as it moves about.

No one will claim that a hellbender is the Fabio of the amphibian world, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Those of us who have come to know these special animals find them attractive indeed, and worthy of the highest protection.

Fortunately, there is a highly competent group of people that have united to form the Ohio Hellbender Partnership. One of Ohio’s foremost herpetologists and longtime hellbender researcher, Greg Lipps, plays a leadership role. Partners include the Akron, Columbus and Toledo zoos, the Ohio Division of Wildlife, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, The Wilds, Ohio University and others.

The partnership regularly surveys and monitors hellbender populations, and such work is not for the lazy. Finding hellbenders involves snorkeling about in cold streams and using video borescopes (underwater cameras) to peer underneath enormous slab rocks on the stream bed. During the day, hellbenders hole up in such places and emerge at night to feed on crayfish and other aquatic fare.

Researcher Greg Lipps searches for hellbenders/Jim McCormac

Conservation of existing hellbender populations, and the restoration of former populations, is the principal aim of the partnership.

On Sept. 1, I accompanied Lipps, the Columbus Zoo’s Pete Johantgen and other partnership members to a north-central Ohio stream. Our goal was to release 44 “head-started” juvenile hellbenders. They were raised from wild eggs in specialized facilities at The Wilds, the Columbus Zoo’s expansive conservation facility in Muskingum County. These hellbenders are reared for two to three years, which gets the animals beyond their most vulnerable stages.

Siltation of waterways has been a leading cause of hellbender declines, as the animals require clear, highly oxygenated and largely unpolluted streams. Fortunately, water quality in Ohio streams has improved significantly since the early 1970s following the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Their efforts, and those of other agencies, to clean up streams have led to much healthier waterways, which has allowed the reestablishment of hellbenders to formerly occupied creeks and rivers.

“Seeding” young hellbenders into appropriate habitat has accelerated the return of this endangered species. In between releasing the young hellbenders, Lipps and his partners snorkeled about the site, threading their cameras under rocks. A few older hellbenders from previous releases were relocated, showing that the site is now conducive to their survival.

The hellbender is a little-known and almost completely unseen but strangely charismatic barometer of our stream health. While few people will ever lay eyes on a wild hellbender, just knowing that they are there should please the conservation minded. A stream without hellbenders, that should have them, is a stream with environmental issues. That they can now successfully be restored to many former hellbender streams is truly an environmental success story.

Thanks to all the people, agencies and zoos that have worked so hard to ensure that hellbenders survive.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

Two autumnal birds

 

As always, click the photo to enlarge

A rather disheveled looking male American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) plunders seed from a robust native sunflower, the Jerusalem-artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus).

Last week was a whirlwind of talks: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. The latter two gigs were in the Cincinnati region. And those last two were about moths, a common speaking topic for me the past few years, following the release of THIS BOOK.

The Thursday evening talk, which was delivered via Zoom, was for a class at Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was about plant photography, another talk that I really enjoy presenting.

Anyway, on Friday, Shauna and I headed southwest to the Fernald Preserve in Hamilton County. Despite its history, Fernald is evolving into nearly 1,000 acres of excellent and diverse habitats. I've done a number of trips there, and it is always interesting. I gave the moth talk in their nice meeting room, then we went outdoors for mothing and caterpillaring.

The next day, we went exploring before my talk that night, which was at the Oxford Lane Library in Oxford (home to Miami University). Kudos to the library staff for creating a very inviting setting for a program and packing the house. Lots of students and some faculty, and lots of good questions.

Anyway, back to the exploring. The goldfinch above was photographed at Gilmore Ponds, a preserve in Butler County, owned and managed by MetroParks of Butler County (The odd presentation of "MetroParks" is on them).

I hadn't been to Gilmore Ponds in ages, and it proved productive. We mostly tried for birds, but the middish-day mostly bright light was not stellar. Tons of turtles, too, and I might post images of a few later. But I did enjoy documenting the goldfinch on a native seed source that I had not shot them on before.

A female Black-throated Green Warbler (Setophaga virens) investigates Black Walnut leaves (Juglans nigra). It was part of a mixed-species feeding flock, and we saw/heard lots of fall migrant songbirds at Gilmore Ponds.

As far as subject matter goes, few groups can be as tough as getting presentable images of migrant fall warblers. Their colors are generally muted, the foliage is still thick, and the birds are mostly silent other than the odd chips and other soft calls. They can blend remarkably well with the senescing foliage, and moving birds resemble blowing leaves.

Mosquitoes killed thousands of people. Ohio has many species.

 

An Asian tiger mosquito taps human blood/Jim McCormac

Mosquitoes killed thousands of people. Ohio has many species.

Columbus Dispatch

September 20, 2026

NATURE

Jim McCormac

This is a column about the second most dangerous animal on Earth, and the most dangerous to humans (who now hold the No. 1 most dangerous animal spot). Mosquitoes kill about 700,000 people annually by spreading diseases such as dengue fever, yellow fever and malaria. The latter alone kills over 600,000 people annually.

Fortunately for Americans, malaria is very rare here. Perhaps six to seven people fall victim to it a year. Contrast that with Africa, where 95% of all malaria cases occur. Dengue fever is also very rare, and yellow fever is now unknown, although it was a significant problem until the early 1900s, when scientists learned about its biology and how to eliminate it.

In America, at least, mosquitoes are now more nuisance than existential threat. But not so long ago, mosquitoes were our No. 1 predator, by a long shot. Nothing has even come close to the tiny insects in dispatching humans.

Mosquitoes appeared around 100 million years ago, and females evolved to suck the blood of various creatures, both cold-blooded and warm-blooded. When humans finally emerged, the bloodthirsty insects had had lots of easy pickings.

Since the dawn of Homo sapiens perhaps 300,000 years ago, we have produced about 108 billion people. To put our short tenure into context, the Earth is estimated to have formed around 4.5 billion years ago, and mammalian animals have existed for 225 million years.

Approximately half of ALL humans over the existence of our species have died due to mosquito bites. That’s over 50 billion people. Now, in the United States, there are perhaps an average of 200 mosquito-related deaths annually. As always, it is diseases spread by the bugs that do us in, and the big one now is West Nile disease. It accounts for over half of those deaths.

While mosquitoes now rarely kill Ohioans, we have plenty of the buzzing suitors seeking our blood. About 60 species have been documented in the Buckeye state, but only a relative handful of species are doing most of the biting.

While only some of our native mosquitoes bother us, their ranks have been bolstered by several non-native species that have greatly increased. One is the Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus), pictured with this column. A common native biter is the floodwater mosquito (Aedes vexans), which ranges over much of the globe.

I realized that I needed a good mosquito photo for the column, so I enticed Shauna into the backyard to be my model. My claim was that I could not operate the camera efficiently while photographing myself getting bitten, and I stand by that. Within a few minutes, I had the shot and Shauna had an itchy welt. The protagonist? The Asian tiger mosquito.

There was another sound scientific reason that Shauna was the mosquito decoy. She apparently radiates much more carbon dioxide than I do. Mosquitoes track potential blood donors by tracking their CO2 emissions, and she apparently emits lots more than I. Field trip tip: Take along a heavy carbon dioxide emitter to draw the biting crowd.

Due to all the rain in central Ohio, mosquitoes have been prolific this year. They can breed successfully in even ephemeral puddles. The life cycle for many species is astonishingly rapid, often only a week or two from egg to flighted adult.

I’m not naïve enough to try and sell the public on the virtues of mosquitoes, but I would make a few observations. For many organisms – frogs, fish, turtles, insects such as dragonfly larvae and much more – mosquito larvae are a huge food source. They are a base layer of aquatic food chains.

Adult mosquitoes are preyed upon by bats, birds such as swallows, adult dragonflies, spiders and others. Furthermore, the adults – especially nonbiting males (only female mosquitoes bite) – seek flower nectar and collectively represent a significant group of pollinators.

Pointing out any virtues will not quash our urge to eradicate mosquitoes through chemistry. While some larvicides may target only mosquito larvae, others are nonspecific and kill all or most insects that they contact. Adulticides are chemicals targeting flighted adults, and these are typically sprayed from low-flying aircraft or from tanks on mosquito-fogging trucks.

Adulticides are broad-spectrum chemicals that kill all or most insect species that they encounter. Mosquito-foggers are rolling entomological Armageddons for the six-legged crowd, and the collateral damage involves scores of insects vital to food chains such as butterflies, moths, lady beetles, dragonflies and lacewings.

We’d do well – for our own species and scads of other animals – to rid the world of nonspecific mosquito-fogging. It’s a blunt force bomb, when what is called for is surgical precision targeting mosquitoes. Mosquito-fogging is surely a significant reason for overall insect declines in some areas.

A simple solution for homeowners is a “mosquito dunk.” A common, easily implemented control is the “bucket of doom.” Simply acquire a packet of mosquito dunks – dissolvable tablets – and plop one on a 5-gallon bucket of water.

Place it in your yard, and most female mosquitoes will lay eggs in the bucket. Chemicals will kill the larvae, thus greatly reducing the ranks of biting adults.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

A blood-engorged eastern treehole mosquito on a snapping turtle. Mosquitoes don't just bite people/Jim McCormac

Fire ants

 

The distinctive conical mounds of red fire ants (Solenopsis invicta). On a trip to southeastern Texas last January, Shauna and I saw scores of these ant high-rises.

This South American insect was accidentally introduced into Alabama in the 1930’s and had spread to Texas by the 1950’s. They’re everywhere now.

Photo: Shauna Weyrauch

Your narrator lies along the verge of a seldom-traveled road through (or near) Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge (Newly rebranded as the Jocelyn Nungary NWR. I used Anahuac as that's still the much better-known name). I was down there to speak at the annual Sadie Gwinn Environmental Conference, put on by the River Oaks Garden Club. It was a great and very well-attended event in Houston, and my talk was about caterpillars and their importance.

Anyway, after driving past the umpteenth giant fire ant nest, I had to stop and work them. That's what I'm doing in the above photo. The Cleveland Clinic describes their sting thusly: "A fire ant sting causes an immediate, intense burning sensation, followed by red bumps, itchy welts, and characteristic white-fluid pustules within a day".

I poked the bear (nest), if you will, to better see the ants. Tiny, but with disproportionately large head and mandibles. Two of them got on my finger, which allowed me to better inspect them, but fortunately they didn’t bite and sting. I had no real desire to be covered with burning pustules that persist for days.

Sorry I couldn't do better with the ant photos. One, they're always racing around and I should have used a flash to help freeze movement. Two, I didn't feel I had very much time to be in such close proximity to them without getting some bites. But I would note that they did not get aggressive, although that may have been soon to come.

While many problems caused by fire ants are human-centric, such as chewed and shorted electrical lines, crop damage, and harm to livestock, they also can lay waste to native species such as indigenous insects completely unadapted to these voracious predators, lizards, birds that nest on the ground, and others.

But bad as they are, fire ants are here to stay from what I can see and will probably continue to expand. They have made it north nearly to Kentucky, and I imagine that one day they'll make it to Ohio.

Peck's Skipper, an invasion?

 

A Peck's skipper (Polites peckius) dangles acrobatically from a mistflower plant in my front yard. I have seen up to 15 of the gorgeous little skippers at once in the past month - by far the most that I've ever seen here. They love the mistflower (Conoclinium coelistinum), as do many other species of butterflies. This plant is really easy to grow - one may even have to occasionally rein it in - and it is a butterfly magnet.

September 8, 2026, Worthington, Ohio.

'Living dinosaurs' can be found in Ohio wetlands

 

A massive, ancient adult snapping turtle/Jim McCormac

'Living dinosaurs' can be found in Ohio wetlands

Columbus Dispatch
NATURE

Jim McCormac
September 6, 2026

The snapping turtle, which is common throughout Ohio, is probably the closest thing to a dinosaur that we have left. Fossilized “snapper” relatives dating to 60 million years ago are essentially indistinguishable from the snappers that occupy Ohio’s wetlands today.

Turtles clearly have one-upped the dinosaurs in the longevity department. Most dinosaurs vanished during a mass extinction event during the Cretaceous period, about 65 million years ago. The tyrannosaurus rex, triceratops, stegosaurus and other massive reptiles that once wandered North America were killed off by the Chicxulub asteroid event.

When that asteroid slammed into the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, the resultant chaos wiped out about 75% of Earth’s flora and fauna. Most dinosaurs did not survive.

But tough turtles did. The order Testudines, which includes all turtles, arose during the Triassic period, about 220 million years ago. The ancestors of the 200 turtle species found worldwide today rubbed elbows with dinosaurs and all manner of ancient life that got erased by the massive asteroid.

Ohio is currently home to 11 turtle species, and the protagonist of this column, Chelydra serpentina, is likely the best-known. Snapping turtles might turn up in any wetland in the state and are present in every county. Those with a fondness for turtle soup certainly know the big, armored beasts. My grandfather used to set out baited trotlines in a small farm pond, the hooks skewered with old beef or chicken chunks.

I have vivid memories of Granddad carrying huge snapping turtles back to the house, then dispatching them with a quick beheading by ax. The resulting turtle stew was thick and rich, spiced with tomatoes and various vegetables. He considered it a culinary delight. Even then, your young narrator appreciated the living turtles much more.

The accompanying photo shows a baby snapper, perhaps a month old. I encountered it last summer at Cedar Bog near Urbana and temporarily detained it for photos. If all goes well for the little fellow, it might outlive everyone reading this column. An especially massive snapping turtle in Ontario, named Grace, was thought to be about 125 years old when she died in 2022. Grace’s shell was about 16 inches in length and she weighed 26 pounds.

While Grace may be the oldest-known snapper, she doesn’t hold the weight record. Some exceptional beasts exceed 35 pounds – heavier than the dumbbells used by many gymgoers. The record is 98 pounds, the famous Big Snap Daddy at Schramm Education Center in Nebraska.

The odds of reaching Grace-like longevity are not great. Female snapping turtles lay large clutches of eggs, over 100 in some cases. Such reproductive fecundity tells us one thing with certainty: Predations rates are sky-high. They must lay large numbers of eggs to better ensure that at least a few hatchlings survive the predatorial gauntlet.

It takes about 12 years for a snapping turtle to reach sexual maturity, but most will never reach that milestone. Probably only a few percent of them reach adulthood. Young turtles have legions of predators, and the eggs are coveted by raccoons and skunks who dig them from the ground. Great blue herons, otters, large-mouthed bass and many other predators eat the hatchlings.

If the turtle can survive to adulthood, it has few worries other than the world’s most dangerous predator, Homo sapiens. And even many a person has been cowed by the large ill-tempered reptiles. When confronted on land, a snapper holds its ground, and snaps menacingly at the interloper. They can certainly draw blood, but the impacts of bites are mostly greatly exaggerated. They can’t snap broom handles in half and normally don’t amputate fingers or break bones. Nearly everyone who does get bit is behaving stupidly toward the turtles. Just give them space. Interestingly, when in the water, snapping turtles seldom, if ever, attempt to bite. They do their best to swim away from the threat.

Snappers are generalist feeders, consuming everything from algae and plants to fish to crayfish, worms, small mammals and birds. Such a catholic diet helps them live in diverse habitats and is a major reason for their success.

I must confess to ruing snappers’ habit of taking waterfowl chicks. The big turtles pull them under the water and wolf down the flightless fuzzies. But turtles have been eating waterfowl for millennia with no substantive impacts. But it is enough of a threat that underwater snapper raids have led to an interesting defensive adaptation by a few duck species, most notably the common merganser.

The ducklings often ride on the hen’s back, as they’re safe from turtles when so ensconced. An issue for the ducklings is that not all of them can fit up there at once, so it is often a constant battle of ducklings pushing their siblings off so they can hop aboard.

Snapping turtles are an age-old part of Ohio’s biodiversity, fascinating living fossils and one of the longest-lived vertebrate animals. Every effort should be made to protect these armored Methuselahs.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

A baby snapping turtle, perhaps a month old/Jim McCormac

Caterpillars are the unsung heroes of nature

 

An elm sphinx caterpillar (Ceratomia amyntor) strikes a "defensive" pose/Jim McCormac

Columbus Dispatch

August 30, 2026

NATURE

Jim McCormac

Something like one-third of Americans believe in reincarnation. Apparently, these wishful thinkers mostly want to come back as animals. Golden retrievers, eagles and tortoises are popular rebirths.

I have a word of advice for the reincarnation crowd: caterpillars. As in, don’t come back as one. I’ll circle back to that in a bit.

Caterpillars are the larvae of butterflies and moths, mostly the latter. Worldwide, moth species outnumber butterflies by a factor of eight. In Ohio, the imbalance is far greater, with moths probably bettering butterflies by a factor of nearly 20.

As George Carlin once said, “The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the credit.” How true that is. People marvel over showy butterflies and cool moths that come to their lights, but many probably don’t even know that they were once a caterpillar.

That’s a shame, as caterpillars are a huge part of our natural world. Believe it or not, they are, by biomass, often the largest group of herbivores in many places. Not white-tailed deer. Take all the deer in 71,000-acre Shawnee State Forest in southern Ohio. I don’t know how many deer that would be, but they’d make an enormous pile.

The bizarre red-washed prominent caterpillar (Oligocentria semirufescens) is a leaf-edge mimic/Jim McCormac

Now somehow harvest every single caterpillar in Shawnee in early September, when their numbers are the greatest. The caterpillar pile would dwarf the deer heap.

Virtually all caterpillars are vegan, and their fare is wild plants. Plants do not want to be eaten, we must assume, and they practice better living through chemistry to battle the ravenous caterpillars.

Plants produce myriad compounds that evolved to ward off caterpillar consumption. Caterpillars continually evolve resistance to these phytocompounds, and some species always crack the chemical code and can eat even the most toxic species.

The best-known local example of this is the monarch butterfly. It only eats members of the milkweed family, and these plants are rich in toxic cardiac glycosides. Excepting the butterfly, milkweed tussock moths and a handful of other moth caterpillars, little can eat these poisonous plants.

Saddled prominent caterpillars (Heterocampa guttivitta) are larval art/Jim McCormac

Milkweeds’ opposite is the white oak (Quercus alba). Over 500 species of caterpillars use it as a host plant, nearly all of them moths. Possibly the oldest plant in the state is the famous white oak in Old Logan Cemetery in Hocking County. That behemoth has spawned millions of caterpillars over its long life.

Humans are beneficiaries of this age-old evolutionary warfare between plants and caterpillars. Many anti-caterpillar phytochemicals are used in foodstuff, medicines, spices, dyes, rubber and much more.

Perhaps the greatest ecological role of caterpillars is transforming plant tissue into an edible form of protein that can be eaten by birds. Few birds eat leaves, but rare indeed would be the bird that would reject a caterpillar. They are nature’s hot dogs; little steaks on legs. They are the major component of many songbirds’ diets. Were caterpillars to vanish, so would orioles, tanagers, vireos, warblers and many others. Forests would fall silent.

Even vegetarian songbirds such as sparrows harvest caterpillars when they have chicks in the nest. Nestlings need rich protein sources to fuel their growth, and caterpillars fit the bill.

It isn’t just birds that hunt caterpillars. A favorite of black bears is one of the most reviled caterpillars by humans. Eastern tent caterpillars make large silken nests in black cherry trees in late spring. Many people despise them, and I have heard of ecological ignoramuses using blow torches to burn them from the trees. But black bears love them, and a bruin can eat up to 25,000 (22 pounds!) tent caterpillars a day.

There are perhaps 100 black bears in Ohio, and their numbers are increasing. This is a wonderful case of a once-vanquished mammal coming back, and caterpillars are helping to fuel their recovery.

Predation rates of caterpillars are astronomical (take note, reincarnationists). Probably only a few percent survive the predatorial gauntlet. Thus, moths and butterflies carpet-bomb reproduce by laying hundreds of eggs to ensure some survive to adulthood. Caterpillars are a base layer of food webs.

Caterpillars are masters of disguise and are incredibly adept at hiding. Furthermore, most species are nocturnal and active when most birds are not. Special tactics must be employed to find them. Caterpillar-hunters must venture into the dark forest and employ special blacklight flashlights. Many caterpillar species fluoresce brightly under ultraviolet light, greatly upping the odds of finding them. Some groups, such as sphinx moth caterpillars, glow so brightly that they appear to be plugged into a light socket.

Moth and butterfly larvae are tubular objets d'art and make fascinating photographic subjects. Hunting them and trying to portray their amazing artistry with a camera becomes addictive.

On Aug. 22, Shauna and I traveled to the backwoods of Jackson County to the 195-acre spread of our friends Julie and Rod Sheets. It was larval madness, and it seemed that every tree produced interesting subjects. Some of my captures from that nocturnal safari accompany this article.

To learn more about caterpillars, visit The Caterpillar Lab at thecaterpillarlab.org.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

The smaller parasa caterpillar (Parasa chloris) suggests a hippopotamus/Jim McCormac