When you think about where giant salamanders come from, most people would normally associate them with China and Japan. Yet while it is true that almost all members of the giant salamander family, the
Cryptobranchidae, originate in Asia there is one species which calls the eastern United States its home. It is
Cryptobranchus alleganiensis, known otherwise and popularly as the hellbender.
Why this giant salamander, which can grow up to 30 inches in length, acquired this name is lost to history. Some say it is because of its strange looks which bewildered early European settlers who imagined that it was a creature from the underworld, bent on returning there. While this is hardly fair, it is not its only unflattering moniker: it also goes by the names mud-devil, devil-dog and more recently, the snotty otter. The first name, as we shall see is the most inaccurate: the hellbender doesn’t like mud one little bit.
