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ROCKS

Streams with high amounts of rock cover often make outstanding hellbender habitat. This is because hellbenders spend most of their lives beneath rocks, using these features for shelter, foraging, and even reproduction! To see some of these behaviors at work, check out the video on our website's "About" page.

 

Hellbenders prefer clean, clear, fast-moving streams as habitat. These types of streams are capable of holding more oxygen - called dissolved oxygen - that hellbenders are able to breathe, since turbulent water can take on more gases. In a similar way, clear, unpolluted water is not choked with sediment or other materials and provides a well-oxygenated home for hellbenders to thrive in.

OVERVIEW

THREATS

FORESTS

One key feature of hellbender habitat isn't even found in the water. Hellbenders are often most commonly found in watersheds with a high amount of forest cover, as opposed to developed or disturbed land. This is because human land uses often contribute sediment and pollution runoff to streams, degrading water quality. Some of our best hellbender streams, in fact, can be found today in protected watersheds within our National Forest System.

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