The road crew stopped for one salamander — and this week, the 'snot otter' went home

An eastern hellbender — North America's largest salamander, growing up to about 2 feet long — wandered into a roadworks site in Belmont County, Ohio, in August. The road crew stopped work, wildlife experts spent two days safely catching the male, and the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium looked after him while the retaining-wall repair was finished. Now the project is complete, he has been returned to the same home waters where he was found, and the crew received a thank-you in the form of 'Hellbenders are real' T-shirts. He is one small success in a bigger comeback: partners across Ohio have raised and released more than 2,000 hellbenders since 2012, and zoo-raised animals are now breeding in the wild.