Beneath the sun-dappled surface of burbling Appalachian rivers, giants lurk.
They hide on the bottom, their mottled skin — a swirl of orange, brown and gray — blending with the sand and pebbles. They peer out with beady eyes from beneath boulders, waiting to ambush crayfish and other prey.
But they’re not monsters. They’re salamanders. Specifically, Eastern hellbenders, the largest ones in North America. These giants sometimes grow more than two feet long yet manage to remain elusive even in shallow waters. Their range extends from New York south to northern Alabama, with another population in the Missouri Ozarks.
Some believe that the name hellbender came from European settlers who thought the creature seemed like something from hell that was bent on returning. Others affectionately call the creatures “mud devils” or “Allegheny alligators.” Whatever the nickname, hellbenders have become a cultural symbol, lending their likeness to beer, cafes, baseball teams, a 100-mile ultramarathon-style race and at least one burrito shop.
But seeing one in the wild takes persistence, care and luck. In early June, I traveled to the mountains of western North Carolina to give it my best shot.
Out in the Current
Kevin Merrill, who, with his wife, owns Oxbow River Snorkeling, swerved his pickup truck onto an unassuming pullout along the North Fork of the French Broad River, not far from Asheville, N.C., and began pulling gear out of the back: five-millimeter wet suits, snorkels and masks, special gloves and hoods, and anti-fog liquid for the lenses.
The photographer, his assistant and I slipped on all of the equipment on the roadside, then descended like neoprene-covered ninjas down a short embankment to the shallow river, which flowed gently over rocks and boulders.
Surely we couldn’t snorkel in this.
Mr. Merrill plunged in, the water reaching close to his knees. Then he flopped forward, floating facedown on the surface, his body and legs buoyed by the wet suit. We followed his lead.
I stuck my fingers into the sandy river bottom and anchored myself against the current. It felt a bit like horizontal rock climbing.
I hadn’t expected so much color. My eyes trained on the incredible palette of rocks and sand that looked like an Impressionist painting inhabited by aquatic creatures as vivid as anything you might see in a coral reef.
Swannanoa darters, with striped bodies and bluish fins, sat near the bottom. River chubs, with spots on their striking gray heads, swam in place near “nests” — big piles of rocks they build to spawn. We saw tangerine darters, with neon orange bottoms, orange fins and metallic blue uppers, and redline darters, with a mosaic of black, white and orange scales.
Crayfish peeked out of crevices. Mussels, plugged into the river bottom, filtered water. Caddis fly larvae built underwater casings — hard, congealed mix of twigs and chewed up leaves — to protect themselves.
But there were no signs of hellbenders yet.
A Threatened Habitat
Mr. Merrill, 52, has an infectious enthusiasm for North Carolina’s aquatic life. Raised near the small town of Rosman, about 30 miles southwest of Asheville, he has been hunting and fishing his entire life. Today, not only does he lead the snorkeling tours, which cost $300 for a half-day tour of up to three people, but he also teaches local schoolchildren about ecology and freshwater biology.
He guided us through two stretches of river, floating ahead as we followed. He stopped to point out the different creatures, or explain the river’s ecology. This focus on the whole river — beyond just the hellbender — has earned him the trust of other biologists, who otherwise discourage individuals from searching out the creatures on their own.
I’m a professed wildlife nerd. I’ve traveled around the world looking for weird animals, hiking through the jungles of Borneo, climbing mountains, sitting in observation blinds, riding on top of jeeps, and swimming in lakes and oceans, but I had never done anything quite like this.
Hellbenders, which can live for 30 years or more, vaguely resemble large underwater lizards (though they are amphibians, not reptiles), and have flappy frills running down the sides of their bodies. Starting in late August, during breeding season, males engage in vicious territorial battles over boulders.
They are, in short, fascinating creatures that have captivated the public imagination, said Lori Williams, who studies hellbenders for the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. Yet their popularity stands in contrast to their population, which has dwindled over the decades because of habitat degradation, collecting, disease and more. The salamanders are “picky,” Ms. Williams said, thriving only in certain types of rivers with specific types of boulders and clean water.
“We have a huge problem with people wanting to move rocks, stack them, build dams,” she said, adding that people should not touch or pick up the salamanders.
In December, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it was considering listing hellbenders under the Endangered Species Act. The salamanders’ situation might be even more precarious after Hurricane Helene, which slammed the region last September, and the subsequent river cleanup, which continues to affect their habitat.
“Some of the best of our best rivers have been just reamed and we don’t know what we’re dealing with,” Ms. Williams said.
During my tour, the signs of the storm’s devastation were everywhere. Embankments were washed away, and trash was still tangled in trees or littered across sand banks.
Even before my arrival at the river, I had worried that Ms. Williams would be right and those picky hellbenders would already be gone. Now, after about 30 minutes in the water, despite Mr. Merrill’s initial encouragement that “they are everywhere here,” I began to brace myself for disappointment.
The Thrill of the Frill
Then I heard a muffled yell from Mr. Merrill, who was floating upstream. I popped out of the water.
“Hellbender!” he shouted. “Hellbender!” (Shouting, Mr. Merrill told me, doesn’t really faze them.)
I waded over to him, awkwardly trying to keep my face in the water as much as possible, and spotted one of the salamanders, at least a foot long, lounging underwater at the base of a boulder. I floated above, overjoyed by my luck and amazed at the rare and otherworldly creature mere feet from my face. I turned for an instant, and it was gone.
A few hours later, in another section of the river, I was pulling myself over another boulder when I caught sight of something soft and frilly. I could hardly believe it.
This time it was my turn to shout “Hellbender!” and Mr. Merrill floated over. He gave me a high-five, as the thrill of finding one on my own consumed me. We watched this second salamander, which was about the same size as the first one, for a few minutes before it shot away with the current.
I pulled myself onto a boulder that was peeking above the water and basked in the sun, marveling at these fleeting encounters. It was late afternoon, and the river sparkled and reflected the green of the trees on the banks. Something Mr. Merrill had told me during lunch that day popped into my mind.
You’ll never look at another river again, he said, without wondering what’s under the surface.
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Mihir Zaveri covers housing in the New York City region for The Times.
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