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Waterdogs, Hellbenders, Sirens and Congo Eels
Nature Bulletin No. 757 May 23, 1964
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
Seymour Simon, President
David H. Thompson, Senior Naturalist
WATERDOGS, HELLBENDERS, SIRENS
AND CONGO EELS
Occasionally a perch fisherman on Chicago's lake front lets out a
startled gasp as he pulls in an ugly, squirming creature that looks like
something out of a bad dream. It is a foot-long, chunky animal with a
flat head, small eyes, a collar of red, bushy gills, four weak legs and a
broad tail. The skin -- sickly gray with dark blotches -- is disgustingly
slimy.
The Waterdog or Mud Puppy is the most numerous of four species of
large salamanders that live in the streams and lakes of the Middle
West. Unlike our smaller salamanders which change into an adult
form that lives on land, these four remain in a juvenile stage and
spend their entire lives in water. As a rule they are active only at night
and so secretive in their habits that they are seldom seen except when
one swallows a baited hook. Contrary to popular superstitions they are
entirely harmless to man. Skinned and fried they are said to have the
flavor of frog legs.
In late spring pairs of waterdogs perform a courtship dance and the
female sticks about 100 quarter-inch, yellow eggs on the underside of a
rock or sunken log. The female guards the nest until the inch-long
young hatch some two months later. They grow slowly, finally
becoming sexually mature at 7 or 8 years. They have been known to
live 23 years in captivity. The diet is mainly crayfish, aquatic insects,
worms and fish.
In school and college laboratories generations of zoology students have
dissected preserved waterdogs in their anatomy classes. They are
particularly well suited for the study of the circulatory system after the
arteries have been injected with red and the veins with blue latex. The
General Biological Supply House of Chicago prepares and markets
about 10,000 of them each year under its scientific name, Necturus.
The Hellbender, so natives along the Ohio and Wabash rivers say, is
"a creature from hell -- bent on returning. " Reaching two feet or more
in length, it has a stout flattened body, a husky tail, four short thick
legs and tiny eyes. It is as wrinkled as a dried prune with loose folds of
skin along the sides. Although it may rise to the surface to gulp air
into its lungs, it absorbs most of its oxygen through the skin. In
September the female lays strings of eggs in a nest scooped in the
gravel behind a rock in a fairly fast stream. Here they are guarded and
fanned by the male until they hatch in November.
The Giant Salamander of the mountain streams in Japan and China is
a near relative of our hellbender. The world's largest living amphibian,
it reaches a length of five feet and a weight of 100 pounds. It is known
to have survived 55 years in captivity. Now it is raised commercially in
Japan as a table delicacy.
The Congo Eel that lives in pools and quiet waters of our southern
states is a freak among the salamanders. With a cylindrical,
serpentine, muscular body up to thirty inches in length it resembles an
eel or a snake but is neither. The oddity about this animal is the
ridiculous size of its legs. They are so tiny and weak that they are of no
possible use either in walking or swimming. One has to look sharp to
see them.
The Siren is another large, eel-like salamander. However, it has useful
front legs but no hind legs at all. Like the waterdog it keeps its
external gills throughout life. Its favorite habitat is a pond or slough in
a river floodplain such as those of downstate Illinois. In early spring
the female lays eggs in hollows in the mud bottom; When the ponds
dry up, they bury themselves in the muck or retreat into crayfish holes
and wait for rain.
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Update: June 2012
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