Eastern Hellbender
The eastern hellbender is a very large species of salamander inhabiting the eastern mountains ranges of North America. These salamanders are completely aquatic and can grow to 30 inches in length from head to tail. In the wild, hellbenders inhabit the bottoms of pollution-free, free-flowing rivers and streams. They are mainly found in the Susquehanna River drainage in southern New York and Pennsylvania. Also they can be found in large portions of the Missouri, Ohio, and Mississippi River drainages from western Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, extreme southern Indiana, most of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, northern Alabama and Georgia, western North Carolina and Virginia.Hellbenders are nocturnal; they hide under large rocks, logs or other shelter during the day. So large flat rocks would be necessary for their zoo habitat. Also they need a somewhat large habitat; they are not usually found in small creeks and streams. They need a few feet of depth and a rocky bottom to live comfortably. Hellbenders live with many other animals. Fish, crayfish, turtles, snakes and insects are few examples, along with all the plant life and algae. If I were creating a habitat for a zoo that would include my animal, I would try to make it
The hellbender is a very solitary species. Outside of the breeding season (late August through early November) meetings between two hellbenders are usually violent. During the breeding season the male will aggressively guard the nest site from predators. As previously noted, hellbenders are nocturnal and remain hidden under rocks through most of the day. They also place the nest site under a large rock that is dug out underneath. Compared to most salamanders, reproduction is unusual in hellbenders; they exhibit external fertilization. Males will persuade females to enter the nest site and lay their eggs. The eggs are between 5 and 7 millimeters in diameter and are spherical in shape. The eggs are laid in paired strings containing about 350 eggs. The male will fertilize the eggs in the nest and will let more than one female lay her eggs there. So a nest could have as many as 1,000 eggs. Once they hatch, about 75 days later, the male leaves the young to fend for themselves. There are no diseases or parasites that dramatically affect the hellbender, but the number of hellbenders has been reduced over the past 100 years because of acid mine drainage, industrial pollution, and excessive siltation. Therefore hellbenders are considered either threatened or endangered, depending on the location. Hellbenders are strictly carnivorous. They mostly eat crayfish, but they will also eat insects, small fish and worms if necessary. My habitat would include these animals so there would be no issue of feeding times; I would try to simulate a natural habitat as much as possible. The animals would reproduce, eat and die with mi
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1094
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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