The Amphibian Foundation's Frog Blog

One of the member of our frog conservation team, Danté Fenolio, is also quite a photography enthusiast. Cryptobranchus , the Hellbender Sternotherus minor , Loggerhead musk turtle Necturus , the Mudpuppy Recently, he has acquired some underwater photography equipment and what better way to test it out than to try and get photographs of the elusive Hellbender . Hellbenders are notoriously difficult to photograph due to their large size and secretive habits, preferring to live under large, relatively un-liftable rocks along fast flowing river bottoms. Photographing Hellbenders is also at minimum a two person job. One to lift the aforementioned huge rocks and one to stand ready for taking photos. Then there is the problem of how to remain still enough to take a photograph while the river's current is naturally trying to drag you downstream. Obviously, this requires great dedication and skill—but as you can see from the photos, quite worth it!

'Everything is going well here.  We are hitting roughly 3 caves per day.  Yesterday, we visited " Temple of the Dragon God ."  It is a deep cave that had a blind cave loach. We visited a farm that cultures the Chinese Giant Salamander , Andrias davidianus .  They had roughly 600 individuals that they were raising.  It was incredible to see so many endangered salamanders in one place.  Andrias davidianus is the world's largest salamander, with record size individuals approaching over 1.75 meters (over 5 feet) in length.