"You never forget your first time seeing a giant salamander, according to Andy Hill.

He was a teenager, standing thigh-high in the Watauga River outside Boone, North Carolina, casting a line on an early fall day when he saw his first eastern hellbender. The salamander stretched 2 feet long and was camouflaged among rocks beneath the clear water.

“You never lose your sense of wonder and otherworldliness when you see one,” said Hill, who now works as the Watauga Riverkeeper for MountainTrue, a nonprofit protecting natural ecosystems in western North Carolina, home to part of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The ancient species, which evolved on the supercontinent Pangaea and outlived the dinosaurs, was submitted for federal protection Friday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. If the proposal is adopted after a period of public comment, the creatures will be protected under the Endangered Species Act."

Brittany Peterson reports for the Associated Press December 13, 2024. [2]