Displaying items by tag: mudpuppies

A mudpuppy mugs for the camera. A hellbender survey in North Georgia uncovered these rare denizens of Southern Appalachia.  Tyler Troxel/Georgia Department of Natural Resources

Only three of the small water dogs have been documented in North Georgia section of Tennessee River drainage since 2011

Thomas Floyd is a wildlife biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Section of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

BLAIRSVILLE — Hellbender surveys in North Georgia turned up a welcome surprise this summer: one of the state’s few sightings of common mudpuppies.

Although these big freshwater salamanders also known as waterdogs range from New York to the Great Lakes and from southern Canada to the rivers of northern Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, common mudpuppies are abundant in only parts of that realm. And in Georgia, they are rare.

The mid-August capture and release of three mudpuppies near Blairsville marked only the third time that Necturus maculosus has been documented in the state. The previous sightings were near Ringgold in 1987 and McCaysville in 2010.

While mudpuppies are found alongside eastern hellbenders throughout much of the hellbender’s range, it’s unclear why mudpuppies are so elusive or simply absent in many streams in Western North Carolina and Georgia.

A Blairsville mudpuppy is seen on the right. On the left are ways to identify a common mudpuppy.  Thomas Floyd/Georgia Department of Natural Resources

Since 2011, DNR surveys have recorded nearly 900 hellbenders across the Tennessee River drainage in North Georgia. But during that same time, and in what is the state's presumed distribution of mudpuppies, only three waterdogs have been seen.