Eastern Newts – Notophthalmus viridescens

[Thomas]

It goes on: today I’ve found the first eggs. The ones on the pic are a few days older I think.

 

On the other pic is a male, now in complete water suit.

 

Cheers,

Thomas

[oaken]

Thanks for the updates Thomas. Very interesting. And congrats on the eggs!

[Matt]

Brilliant, do you leave the eggs in with the adults Thomas?

All being well am off on a Salamandra hunt this Saturday night so will let you know how it goes.

[Thomas]

I’ve separated a few eggs (five?). I’m unsure how many I should try to raise. 

[Jrp]

I hope they do well. Keep us posted.

I found some vernal pools and lakes in the local forests but have yet to find any of these newts or even any other salamanders as they prepare to spawn. I did see and hear many wood frogs though.

Here is a pic of a salamander I found last summer in the swimming pool. We had a severe drought and I suspect it was looking for water. Unfortunately, it died a few hours later. Probably from exposure to the chlorine level in the pool. 

This is the Cave salamander (Eurycea lucifuga). Its quite a beautiful species. This was the first time I had seen one.

[Matt]

Beautiful creature! I’ve been up in the Montseny UNESCO reserve this weekend and we found fire salamanders there. Will post some pics up later on.

[Thomas]

Never seen fire salamander in the wild, only in pet stores… Good news, the eggs are developing. Now they are looks like a croissant.

[Thomas]

Update:

 

Looks good.

 

[Thomas]

The first one:

 

[oaken]

Congratulations! How big are they when they hatch? Also, what do you feed the larva?

[Jrp]

Congratulations!!

[Thomas]

Thanks, after hatching they are ~8 mm. Try to feed them with artemia nauplii, but after the first two days I haven’t seen feed anyone. Maybe the oldest starts today…

 

currently they are five.

[Matt]

Congrats Thomas! Please let us know how they get on!

[Thomas]

So, I’ve round about 10 Larves in a small tank. They are between one and five days old, and I haven’t seen they feed something, but they are still alive. On the shot from the side you can see the “Balancer” at the throat, therewith the larves could adhere on plants or so. Never heard about this before.

 

The editor works better with pics now, right

 

Cheers,

Thomas

[Matt]

Yeah I changed a couple of settings. 🙂 They are interesting-looking, is that ‘balancer’ adhesive then?

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