What the heck is a hellbender?

11/28/23 • 30 min

The Eastern Hellbender is a mysterious creature. It has a scary name, slimy texture, lives a solitary life under rocks in remote Appalachian

Mountain streams, and is mostly nocturnal. Yet it’s also increasingly threatened and important to maintaining stream health.
On this episode of Earthly, Jonathan talks to Clemson associate professor Cathy Jachowski.

Jachowski studies stream ecology, and she’s going to tell us everything we ever wanted to know about the eastern hellbender — including the origin of its horror-movie name — which is just another one of its many mysteries.
SHOW NOTES
Jachowski Lab

Amphibians are the world's most most vulnerable animals

Help the hellbender

For show notes and additonal resources, visit https://blogs.clemson.edu/earthly/.
Earthly is hosted and produced by Clemson University.

The Eastern Hellbender is a mysterious creature. It has a scary name, slimy texture, lives a solitary life under rocks in remote Appalachian

Amphibians are the world's most most vulnerable animals

Help the hellbender

For show notes and additonal resources, visit https://blogs.clemson.edu/earthly/.
Earthly is hosted and produced by Clemson University.

Previous Episode

Researcher flies the skies collecting airborne genetic material

Clemson faculty member Kimberly Metris is not just an academic but also a licensed commercial pilot. One day while piloting skydivers to their jump altitude, Metris could see the Saharan dust plume over Upstate South Carolina and had a research epiphany to see what genetic matter was flying around in the sky. In this episode of Earthly, I talk to Metris about that epiphany, her work monitoring the skies for genetic matter, how she designed and constructed her own instrumentation, and what she found. She’ll also talk about next steps for her research.
Show notes and additional resources.

For show notes and additonal resources, visit https://blogs.clemson.edu/earthly/.
Earthly is hosted and produced by Clemson University.

Next Episode

The majesty, demise, and restoration of the American Chestnut tree

When Bob Wells and Mel Tormé penned “The Christmas Song” in 1945 and the Nat King Cole Trio recorded it in 1946, “Chestnuts Roasting on an open fire/Jack Frost nipping at your nose,” became a Christmas tradition.

Now as our attention turns to the holidays, it's worth remembering that the American Chestnut tree that once dominated Southern Appalachian forests is gone. One recent article said that it numbered in the billions throughout its range. The tree was both ecologically and economically important. But a fungal pathogen that was introduced to North America caused a chestnut blight and destroyed the once-magnificent trees.

Today on Earthly Jonathan talks to forest ecologist Don Hagan.
Hagan is going to tell us about the history of the American Chestnut, its once-important role in our ecology and economy, how it died, and the heroic efforts being taken to bring it back from extinction.
SHOW NOTES

American Chestnut Foundation

What it takes to bring back the American Chestnut Trees

HGIC: Chestnuts roasting on an open fire

Native American Ethnobotany Database

For show notes and additonal resources, visit https://blogs.clemson.edu/earthly/.
Earthly is hosted and produced by Clemson University.

Earthly - What the heck is a hellbender?

Transcript

Intro (00:01):

Welcome to Earthly, a Clemson University podcast discussing issues of agriculture, horticulture, nature, and design impacting the world nation, state of South Carolina and even your home. Here's your host, Jonathan Veit.

Jonathan (