Breeding Spotted Salamanders (ambystoma maculatum)

Can anyone help me with the care and breeding of yellow spotted salamander? E.I. Encloser size/ number of individuals, foods that are most beneficial. Anyone help would be greatly appreciated. Thank You.

I have kept and bred Spotted salamanders myself and can help you with some things. Spotted salamanders will feed on many live foods, including earthworms, waxworms, crickets, and blackworms.They are secretive creatures and are best observed with as little disturbance as possible. Captive breeding requires a winter cooling period, the temperature of which will wary upon the animals range.

I am, and I'm sure others are, very interested in the details of your breeding of Spotted salamanders. Could you kindly give some details, please? I'm particularly interested in how long had these animals been kept as captives and whether you bred them outdoors or under true captive conditions.

Regards,

John

Well,these were the first (and only) salamaders that I bred. I had purchased both of the salamanders (male and female) at a pet shop in Houston, TX. Unfortunately they did not know the age of these but said they were captive bred. I kept both of them in a very large (100-gallon) aquarium with a mix of leaf litter and organic planting soil as a substrate. A quarter of the terrarium was an area with a pond sloping from 1 in of dept to 5 inches. I hibernated my salamanders by simply placing the terrarium outside from December to February (in Texas, the temperature drops into the high 60’s). After bringing the terrarium back in I created a rain chamber with a canister filter. The filter sprayed lukewarm water on the land area. In the wild this prompts migrations to breeding ponds. On the third week of March I discovered that there was a masse of eggs on a plant’s underwater roots. There were exactly 93 eggs in the masse. Unfortunately, only 70 eggs hatched, I collected the larvae and put each one in a small plastic container. The larvae hatch at about 13mm and they were extremely hard to feed, and 5 died. They only took live Bloodworms and tiny chopped blackworms. Within 3 months off hard work the young had begun to transform to the terrestrial stage at this point I moved them to larger 10-gallon terrariums (5 salamanders in each). I was forced to sell 50 of them, but kept 15. This was 3 years ago and now they may be able to breed (with another litter from a different family to prevent inbreeding). Eric .D if you do want to breed them you do not need a tank as large as mine, but the large the better. Remember some Spotted Salamander will lay up to 200 eggs, and most will hatch so you need a lot of space to raise the larvae.

Good luck with the Spotted Salamander, they make a great captive.

I have to say that I'm somewhat sceptical about this rain stimulation and the winter temperatures, but that's a very interesting account. Did you document any of this with photos?

I assure you that the rain works. Salmanders from souther regions don't really hibernate but they do remain inactive at these temperatures.I did take a few pictures of the larvae,the adults, and the terrarium setup.

You should post some of your photos in the "photo of the week" part of the General discussion forum, please .

John

How can i post them? (I don't have a scanner)

That's a pity .

I'm in a Bio class and the class is spilt into groups, each group having about 10 salamanders. They are about 1.5 cm long and whichever group can get there's to live the longest wins. please tell me what type of water, food, and place to keep them in.

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ashley, do you know what kind they are? At that size, they must still be larvae. The challenge is that they need tiny LIVE food.

Try these articles, for starters:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/raising.shtml
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/microfoods.shtml

It is the first time I heard from first hand that somebody have breed spot salamanders indoors. Very interesting the raining method. I hope you can post some pics. I also suggest you to write a caresheet for them since surely its not easy to breed them.
Or even a short article for caudata magazine. What do you think John?

hey, i collected a juvy spotted, and he's not eating. you said something about selling the juvinile terrestrial form? where did you sell them (ie, pet store or friend) and for how much each? i was thinking i could have my local petstore care for him for a while, whatever i have to pay them, or i could just sell him to them. either way, could you tell me what to feed them? post in my topic in "newt and salamander help" under "juvy abystoma maculatum not eating". thanks.

-brendan

Yago, that post was from 2001. I'm sure that person's long gone by now.

Brendan, if you collected it, then let it go, especially if you can't care for it. It is completely unethical to collect animals and then sell them for profit.

I agree with Kaysie, let it go.


BTw, I wouldn't consider the rain unusual-it is a common trick with frog keepers....but I'm unsure whether or not sallies can sense or see the rain.

From personal experience, the rain system did not work for me.
The comment above about southern vs northern salamanders and hibernation does not hold as Ambystomids retreat underground and are not necessarily exposed to substantially different temperatures.
I have only heard of this "working" with respect to animals collected in midmigration or from the breeding sites.
The triggers for the migration are not necessarily the same as those required to induce spawning as animals that were not ovulating have been collected in breeding migrations.

Ed

I can not tell if it works or not for maculatum Ed, but it does work with me for maxrodactylum and for most of my pondtype Hynobius. In hynobius it is even dramatical, since shortly after showering the animals on the land area they go into the water (the males first). In literature about their ecology I also notice that animals are actually driven into the water after rising of temperatures and rains (measurements and counting done on hynobius). For me I think that the cold temperatures and rain-simulatiuon is why i can breed Hynobidae. Also I thought that having cool temperatures let's the animals not consume all the food-energy and use that for the making off sperm and eggcells . Question is where the line lies : what's cold enough (andhow much food to give)?

Hi Henk,
I tried four different variations on the rain system with A. maculatum over four years time coupled with variations of temperature and humidity.
I was able to induce the females to ovulate but could not get the males to go into the water.
I then skipped a year (and again the females ovulated).
I then tried variations of just inreasing water levels to see what effect that would have. Again the females ovulated the males did not respond.
The only time I got any behavior out of the males was I cooled them to about 40 F (4.44 C) and then stuck them directly into the water with no land area available. I then observed circling behavior but the females did not ovulate and were not repsonsive to the males.


I might have had better luck if I was not using wc adults.
Ed

Mike Check you e-mail.

Ed