Amazing stories!

I thought I'd start a topic for anyone to share their amazing/funny/weird stories about the newts and salamanders you've known. I've got a couple

When I was a graduate student, my (future) husband was working with Ambystoma macrodactylum. He had large numbers of larvae to keep and feed. One of these little guys developed a severe case of bloat, so my husband was going to euthanize him. I decided to give the tiny thing a second chance, and I set him up in a little half-land half-water terrarium in my office. Well, one day he just disappeared. After a few weeks of not seeing the little guy, I assumed he had died in the tank.

I eventually forgot about Little Bloaty. Months passed, and I got notice that I was moving to a new office. While I was packing, I took that old terrarium out from under all the books that had been stacked on top of it and started dumping out the old dry dirt and junk inside. A clump of dirt - dry as a bone - fell on the floor and broke open. Inside was a tiny, tiny macrodactylum metamorph. I'd never seen a smaller one. Amazingly, he was alive!

To make a long story short (too late!), he grew into a beautiful, very friendly (probably because of all the hand-feeding), and healthy salamander. Eventually, we renamed him Killer because of his viciousness with his food. He also did little tricks, like balancing on his hind legs and tail to beg for treats. Sadly, he died quite unexpectedly a couple of years ago, but we'd had a good long time together before that.

My other story is more funny/tragic than amazing: I'd gotten two firebelly newts for a birthday way back when I was fifteen or so. I actually have no idea what species they are, but they are definitely food-crazy! Anyway, we've had them for many, many years and they used to get moved all over the house as my parents re-decorated.

At some point, my mom decided they would do well on the kitchen counter next to the sink. And this was back when we were dumb and didn't know how good these little guys could be at escaping. We'd also had them for a few years and they'd never gone on walkabout.

Well, apparently, the lure of the kitchen sink was too much to resist. That, plus my mom used to just dump old cat food cans in there before rinsing and recycling them. She came home one day and found no newts begging for food in the tank. Instead, they were in the sink chowing down on old cat food and having a great time... inches from the garbage disposal and certain doom.

Anyway, it was a really good lesson for us. The two firebellies, Fatty and Skinny, are still alive and well (they'll turn 18 in December) and living with my sister.

Got any stories to share?

Hey, those were some great stories... here's mine!-

I have a Chinese fire-belly newt (Cynops orientalis) that I have had for several years. Up until a few months back, there were some cracks between his tank and the lid, as the lid broke and didn't fit right any longer. I didn't think anything of it until one night, jut before I went to bed. I walked in the room and smack-dab in the middle of my walkway is my CFB (lucky I didn't step on him)! I almost didn't notice, but I happened to look down and see him. He was covered in carpet fuzz, and when I touched him, he tipped over and didn't move. I truly thought he was dead, but in a (childish) effort to restore life, I put him in a cup of tank water. As I was showing my mom, He moved a little! To my total disbelief, after having the fuzz removed and being put back in his tank, he made a full recovery.

This just goes to show why having a secure lid is so important (I fixed the lid). Today he is thriving and very plump ( a little too much so, if you ask me).

My boyfriend had a tree fog back in college and at one point his little pet had gotten loose. We looked every where for him, but resign to the sad thought.... of death.

A week later... a whole week, he was watching TV with some friends when all of a sudden something fell from the fan. He went over to check it out and low and behold it was his frog. POOR THING! he was dried out and had healed cuts all over him.... Well he put him back in his tank and it actually bounced back quite well. He said it was like watching a sponge soak up all the water.

happy end
fin

I had a tank of axolotls that were about 4 inches long. I went away for a long weekend and did not feed heavy enough when I left. The axolotls all ganged up on one axolotl and chewed its legs nearly completely off. As I remember they were completely off but their might have been some little stubs. I put the wounded axolotl in its own tank and medicated it. I fed it everyday with salmon pellets. It had poor locomotion but could wiggle to the food. Eventually its' legs and feet grew back completely.

michael said:

I had a tank of axolotls that were about 4 inches long. I went away for a long weekend and did not feed heavy enough when I left. The axolotls all ganged up on one axolotl and chewed its legs nearly completely off. As I remember they were completely off but their might have been some little stubs. I put the wounded axolotl in its own tank and medicated it. I fed it everyday with salmon pellets. It had poor locomotion but could wiggle to the food. Eventually its' legs and feet grew back completely.

Click to expand...

The type of injury salamanders can recover from is pretty amazing. One of my female N. viridescens dorsalis had her entire arm ripped off by her cage-mate. It only took a few months for the arm to grow back completely. Now I can't even tell which one she lost.

Not sure whether this qualifies as amazing, but perhaps it will be amusing.

Years ago, I had three fire salamanders in a nice little habitat, one of whom (perhaps unusually for Salamandra salamandra) was an inveterate climber. We named him Jack on account of this trait, but I never worried about him getting out because there was only one hole he could theoretically get through (it allowed in wires for the submersible filter I was using), and there was no purchase for him to climb up to it.

One day, however, my wife came running up the stairs saying "Jack's under the washing machine." Sure enough, he'd somehow got loose and made his way to a small stream flowing along the laundry room floor. I had to use a pair of chopsticks to gently pull him out (he was about 7-8 inches long and had made his way well under the washer) and put him back in the tank. Amazingly, he had climbed a plant, which had uprooted and tipped directly to the hole, from which he'd fallen 4-5 feet to the carpet. Somehow uninjured, he'd made his way to the laundry room (cement floor) and to the only flowing water in the basement.

Once I had gotten Jack safely back in his tank, it dawned on me that normally one doesn't have a stream flowing under the washing machine...what the devil? As it turns out, the hot water heater had sprung a leak and was draining into the floor drain...hoo boy. In a way, I could thank my salamander for tipping me off to that little problem.

If anyone's wondering, the tank set-up was a large aquarium in which I had laid in gravel as the bottom substrate layer. This allowed me to put in a water table which was kept clean with a submersible filter. The filter drew water from the pond end of the tank (the gravel sloped below water line) and pumped it through a tube that ran below gravel to the other end of the tank and up to the top of a large rock, creating a water fall. Most of the gravel in the tank rose above the water line, and on top of that I had layered soil and moss, along with the usual plants and hiding places. The tank had a wire screen on top, and I never had any problems at all with humidity. The sallies seemed very content there.

Yes, I covered that pass-through hole after this incident.