Battle of ‘creature from hell’ vs snake caught on video in muddy north Georgia stream

A man fishing in north Georgia stumbled onto a seldom seen fight between “a creature from hell” and a large watersnake — and his video of the moment has been shared by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

The “creature” was a large eastern hellbender, an intimidating salamander that resembles a writhing puddle of mud with eyes and a mouth.

They are infamously linked to witchcraft, and known for popping up in impossible to reach places, like under heavy rocks.

“Angler Austin Taylor was trout fishing on the Chattahoochee National Forest in north Georgia ... when he videoed a large northern watersnake attacking an adult hellbender,” the state department’s Facebook post reads. “The interaction isn’t unusual, but seeing it is.”

Taylor didn’t share which of the two creatures won the battle, but the hellbender appeared to be on the losing side, as it was tossed and spun from the snake’s mouth.

Seeing such a battle is unusual because the eastern hellbender is rarely seen by day, despite growing to more than two feet in length, experts say.

“Referred to by locals as ‘mud devil,’ ‘devil dog’ ... and ‘Allegheny alligator,’ the hellbender has certainly been colored as ‘a creature from hell where it’s bent of returning’,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says. “They are generally nocturnal, spending most of the day under rocks on the stream floor, emerging at night to hunt.”

Eastern hellbenders are the nation’s largest salamander, reaching up to 29 inches, the Fish and Wildlife Service reports. They are “blotchy brown to red-brown in coloration,” flat bodied, and have “folded slimy skin,” federal wildlife experts say.

“The salamander has been immemorially credited with certain fabulous powers,” according to Sacred-Texts.com.

“The skin was long thought to be poisonous, though it is in reality perfectly harmless; But the moist surface is so extremely cold to the touch that ... the idea must have arisen, not only that it could withstand any heat to which it was exposed, but it would actually subdue and put out fire.”