Hellbenders
Jun. 1st, 2017 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charisstomaWhat the Heck Is a Hellbender—And How Can We Make More of Them?
Why the Saint Louis Zoo decided to invest in this slimy, surprisingly adorable amphibian
/https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/filer/74/32/74329b9d-17e1-4dff-961b-a11df832d661/ozark_hellbender-jtb2012.jpg)
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/giving-them-hellbenders-at-saint-louis-zoo-180963417/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20170601-daily-responsive&spMailingID=29232096&spUserID=NDQ0NTE0NTI4NDQ2S0&spJobID=1060159914&spReportId=MTA2MDE1OTkxNAS2
Jeff Briggler is leaning face-down in a freezing Missouri stream. Breathing through a snorkel and soaked up to his wetsuit-clad armpits, the Missouri resource scientist peers under rocks and probes into dark, underwater crevices. This is how you look for the rare, elusive survivors of the Carboniferous period, commonly known as hellbenders.
When he emerges, Briggler is holding a wriggling, pebbled and frankly adorable creature the size of a man's forearm. This slimy serpent is actually an endangered Ozark hellbender—though that modifier may be changing. The animal that Briggler drops into a blue mesh bag was born in captivity and has thrived in the wild against all odds, thanks to a series of conservation experiments by the Saint Louis Zoo.
.......
Why the Saint Louis Zoo decided to invest in this slimy, surprisingly adorable amphibian
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/giving-them-hellbenders-at-saint-louis-zoo-180963417/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20170601-daily-responsive&spMailingID=29232096&spUserID=NDQ0NTE0NTI4NDQ2S0&spJobID=1060159914&spReportId=MTA2MDE1OTkxNAS2
Jeff Briggler is leaning face-down in a freezing Missouri stream. Breathing through a snorkel and soaked up to his wetsuit-clad armpits, the Missouri resource scientist peers under rocks and probes into dark, underwater crevices. This is how you look for the rare, elusive survivors of the Carboniferous period, commonly known as hellbenders.
When he emerges, Briggler is holding a wriggling, pebbled and frankly adorable creature the size of a man's forearm. This slimy serpent is actually an endangered Ozark hellbender—though that modifier may be changing. The animal that Briggler drops into a blue mesh bag was born in captivity and has thrived in the wild against all odds, thanks to a series of conservation experiments by the Saint Louis Zoo.
.......
