Urban Biotope for Marmoratus

Recently I discovered an old swimming pool, close to the city, with youngs of marmoratus living inside.

Taking a look around that place I found also one deep well (about 4 mt. depth!) with some adults in aquatic phase too. It was surprising for me to see how those marmoratus looks like pygmaeus.

[Ryan]

Lucky find! Nice pics.

wow. amazing pics! Sure is a weird habitat, but looking at the stuff in the water it looks like a perfect "unnatural" pond for them.
I knew of salamandra larvae in very deep ponds but this are first news of marmoratus using those too.
I gotta love the colours of these animals... They have a lot of green and a nice black spotted pattern.
I want more hehe

Wow! What an awesome find!

lucky you are, wish i can have that chance

Which city?

Were the newts in the well able to climb out? Easy to fall in but a challenge to get out by the looks of it! The swimming pool doesn’t look particularly newt friendly either. It just shows how adaptable they can be. I remember reading an account of newts in the UK (an old Trevor Beebee book I think) where the author had found the highest concentration of great crested newts he’d ever seen inside a discarded sofa lying in a pond.

Hi Ruben
were those juveniles aquatic? It is very interesting cos I thought juvenile marmoratus were strictly terrestrial. Why do you think they remain aquatic in this particular place? Could it be that it's quite difficult to climb out of the pool like Mark says?

I forgot to mention it… the Brown frog it’s a Rana perezi, of course… and the place of the swimming pool was Palencia city, close to Valladolid (where I live)

As far as I know, this phenomenon is quite common: T. Marmoratus use for breeding all the water resources available without fishes, and these swimming pools for summertime are everywhere, in the old properties surrounding the cities. I won’t be surprised if I find Pleurodeles too on next trips.

The swimming pool was full of youngs in aquatic phase, with some adult too(it is not a problem for them, they have a lot of food). But the most high proportion of adults that I found was inside the well ¿?. It is unbelievable, cause if must be difficult to get out of the swimming pool, I cannot imagine how they challenge to climb the walls of the well…

Some Spanish herpetologist mention the presence of T. marmoratus and Pleurodeles in wells as an adaptation in dry regions like this. But so deep wells, certainly, doesn’t look a particularly friendly environment.

I saw similar perezis too in some village i can´t remember. But not as brown and big as that one. That´s one weird perezi.
I´ve been told by a couple of guys in my career that they have pleurodeles in their pools, specially during summer. One also told me he had seen them get out the pool at night and though it´s hard they seem to find a way with not much difficulty.

btw...the red stripe of those juvies is insane. Mine have a way lighter one..very orange. But those are intense as if drawn with a pen.

(Message edited by azhael on February 22, 2007)

[Mike East]

This is a great series of photos, thanks for posting them.

They remind me of a few pacific treefrogs (Pseudacris regilla) I once found that were living in the bathroom of a rarely used building.

That's one nice big breeding tank over there, are they able to get out of it?

Very nice pictures

A couple of pics of another male found at night...