Ok spill the data!! (henk, tim!)

hynobids are hitting the US market now -and it may be a fluke-so i got what i could afford -enough for a colony (7)-of adult blacks and tokyos. i wont know till tuesday how good their health. i have the paper henk wrote on hynobids. but i'd like specific data on these 2 species (..um tim...) like any issues with captivity and in particular how to get them to breed (i wanna see those cool egg sacs!)...etc etc....

Hai Paris, happy to see you getting into Hynobius land. I adore working with them (like you know) and in terms of captive care they are very similar to ambystoma. Give them plenty of food when they arrive and set them maybe first up in a little layer of water with stones and plants (ferns, whatever). They will need it when arriving. These guys also eat those Belgium.

For breeding a cool winter period is recommended. I keep them outdoors in an unheated garden house and they remain cool for the whole winter with some periods even aroiund 0°C (approx a month...)
Then I refresh the water several times after each other ( weekly ?) and put in dead sticks which coming up from the bottom run horizontally for a while underneath the watersurface. That's where they deposit.

Well I hope you enjoy them. I'm currently waiting mysefl to get some of those black nigrsecens myself. I have but 3 juveniles now.
If youn need more info , tell me.

Henk
could you post some pics of your H. dunni setups?
Thanks
Chris

Paris, sorry for the delayed response. Glad to have you in the oh-so-small Hynobius-enthusiast club!

Sure, I'll try and be of help, though when it comes to breeding matters and even setups and things, Henk is "the man" to consult with. What I can offer you is mainly glimpses of their natural habitats and info from Japanese-language sources. Other than 1 Onychodactylus japonicus adult (and 1 semi-adult), I actually keep no hynobiid adults and have never raised any to adulthood or bred any, having just started with them last year and having raised all mine from egg sacs.

I currently have over 40+ H.nebulosus morphs and around 20 juvies, 10 H.tokyoensis larvae and 20 juvies, 8 H.dunni semi-adults, 1 H.retardatus semi-adult, 5 H. lichenatus juvies and 6 larvae, 1 H.takedai juvies, and 1 H.nigrescens larvae. With the exception of O.j, I won't be trying to raise lotic-breeding species anymore. All the others I have are lentic breeders.

I see you've already acquired H.tokyoensis, but I regret to inform you that they're among the least interesting hynobiids for keeping in my opinion, mainly because they're so secretive and paranoid. H.nebulosus is my favorite, followed by H.dunni and H.retardatus -- mainly based on ease of feeding, which inevitably impacts on the degree to which I bond with them H. lichenatus and H. takedai remind me of H.tokyoensis in their shy ways, though they're not nearly as skittish.

You also have H.nigrescens, I see. I don't have any experience with them other than raising the single larvae. I do have some pics of H.nigrescens egg sacs and larvae from a recent trip I took up north, and will try to post them soon.

(Message edited by TJ on June 24, 2004)

they didnt have enough dunni or nebulosas-and those went for 80 and 65 $$ respectivly...so i went with the ones they had enough to form a colony with(have you seen the post of them?) the tokyos are sub adults-when do they turn brown?(is that a gender difference?-all i know is what ive seen in your pics) the blacks are adults but really thin- i am hoping after 10 days i can get them to eat ok w/o resulting to tube or force feeding.

Yeah, I saw the pics and they certainly don't look to be in tip-top shape. With the tokyoensis in particular, I wouldn't put all my efforts into trying to hand-feed them if I were you. In my experience, this species is particularly hard to feed that way. After letting them calm down following all the abuse they've been through, I'd provide them with some S-size crickets -- not to many at once -- say in a shoe-box sized container with moss to ease capture. You may have your own ideas, entailing the use of slugs or worms or whatever. I suppose you're keen to avoid refeeding syndrome

Or was it just the blacks that were thin? I have no experience with them so I can't really comment. I wouldn't think they'd be all that different to care for though.

As for the color change in the case of tokyoensis, I was surprised to see light-colored ones when I took my night photos at the breeding pond. Generally they're dark. I don't think gender is a factor insofar as coloration goes.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was some kind of soaking solution besides Ringers for supplying famished, weak salamanders with nutrition?

(Message edited by TJ on June 24, 2004)

Ringer's plus a little glucose, as long as you don't increase the osmolarity too much?

Paris,

I too just got some Blacks and some Tokyo.
what species are the Blacks?

and where can I get Henk's paper?

greg

hmm... had I read everybody else's responses BEFORE posting mine I mighta seen the tern "nigrescens". hmm...

oh well... feels like Monday.

greg

greg-do yours look any better than mine? i wrote the supplier about their condition-with some of the same pics but he has yet to write me back. i'll try to mail you a copy of the paper today.

Wow. today i find that all 3 Tokyo and 1 black are dead already. Maybe I did something wrong. Maybe they were in bad shape to start with.

Of the remaining blacks, 2 are missing front legs and 1 is very thin.

is this the only vendor in the U.S selling these right now? anybody breeding them and thus having healthier starters available?

greg

you got them from underground? -did they look like mine where they came in?-you got batryl(10% solution?) how many you got of each type left??

I did get them from underground and do not have any Baytril (but could get it). I have 6 blacks left and that's all.

I haven't seen pics of yours... where are they?

upon recommendation of my vet-i apply a 10% batryl solution topically for 10 min a day for 10 days (i get their backs wet first so it wont bead up and repel). 50% of the blacks have eaten already -despite being so thin-i dont want to offer them too much all at once. once the batryl has calmed down their guts and any infections they may have occured from stress -then we go on to putting weight on them slowly-once that is done (after about a month or two) we will use flagyl to eliminate their native parasites in their guts.



here is a link to the pics/data string on the hynobids:
http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/985/17162.html?1088285940

I would recommend to keep them failry could and offer them much tiny worms for food in spaghnum moss or so (fridge). When I got my 8 nigresecens they were kind of ill and showed abnormal movements (uncoordinated moves) and some were quite thin too. I lost some short after arrival and the 3 I still have have made it this way and grown well now (one is still a bit thin but looking better then when I got it anyway. I would be cautios using too much medication in the state they are in and be peticularely cautions on the dosage...

Paris and Greg keep me updated with the status of your animals will you ??

henk-
after loosing the one black after the first day all has been ok. the 10 days of medicine did well for these 2 groups. i will try to post photos later so you can see the difference. all the blacks are eating very well -some are absolute pigs and attack anything that moves-most are so bold as to take it from my fingers before i even get a cricket held right!

all the hynobids are passing fully digested material-so their guts look happy.

the tokyos were broken down into 2 groups -4 looking ok - only one of those at good weight. then a group of 3 that made slimy salamanders look fat. all of these animals are eating fine but the skinny ones -despite eating well -are not putting on weight as much as id like them to. i am still feeding them small crix and a limited amount -which they divide amoungst themselves -i may further divide the groups up so the healthier ones of the skinny group will not have an advantage of the skinniest.

I find that from the pondtype Hynobidae the H. tokyoensis being the most difficult ones to keep properly. From time to time I loose an animal without knowing why, but happely enough I have bred them and got an extra import 1 year ago so that I have a stable and even growing group.

Hynobidea are really like you describe your black ones, no shy at all and not picky eaters at all... in fact they act like vacuumcleaners and as larvae they are even worse ... but I love them and they are curious to spot during the breeding period !!

Paris,

My animals from that vendor look the same as yours, except for the ones that died.... they aren't as perky as yours.

Baytril eh?

Greg

yeah look at my june 28 post above for the batryl schedule.

id have to say my dead one isnt perky either...infact i might name it 'crunchy' (i left it out to dry to add to my other specimens that i will probably never get around to cleaning and articulating the bones....)
i am really amazed at how well these are doing now. i have my camera on me and i plan to go to the shop in an hour(got to do mice first)i will get some pics...stay tuned....

Well here is the url's to some of my Hynobius nigrescens images

http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/img_query?where-namesoup=Hynobius+nigrescens&rel-namesoup=like&where-lifeform=Amphibian&where-photographer=any&rel-location=like&where-location=&where-continent=none&where-country=none&where-state=none&where-county=none&rel-kwid=equals&where-kwid=

Hope you like them. They might be a bit older then yours, since they are currently 3 years of age