Gosh, my daddy’s family is from north Georgia, and he came across one of these guys as a kid. It scared the crap out of him!

I’ll admit, I’ve always wanted to see one in the wild… maybe one day. Big lil snot otter.

Come on, don’t keep us hanging! What does the little guy play…? A melody in E minor? A game of rugby??

Oh that’s not even that isolated in Australia. There’s a fish caught off their shores that had a whole big marketing push in the 90s and 00s to rebranded it from its common name. Slimehead. Thankfully I think they abandoned commercial marketing of it. They would have fished it out in record time. Seeing as the fish can take north of a decade to mature and reach spawning age.

Wikipedia continues to not disappoint:

The name ‘hellbender’ probably comes from the animal’s odd look. One theory claims the hellbender was named by settlers who thought “it was a creature from hell where it’s bent on returning.” Another rendition says the undulating skin of a hellbender reminded observers of “horrible tortures of the infernal regions.” In reality, it’s a harmless aquatic salamander.

And this:

Other vernacular names include snot otter, lasagna lizard, devil dog, mud-devil, mud dog, water dog, grampus, Allegheny alligator, and leverian water newt.

Lots of fabulous nicknames there.

Snot otter is a pretty accurate name for that thing.

Snot otter? I barely know her!

I thought snot otter was what Canadians call a farmer-blow… TIL.

looks like Florida