Inspirational Experience

I have always been curious as to what was the pivotal moment in your life that made you say, 'I want to raise newts or salamanders'? What did you experience either at a zoo, a herping expedition, reptile show, seminar, etc... that made you become a steward to and for these amazing creatures?

In my case, i was hunting tadpoles with my brother in a small stream that run by my grandparent´s house when we caught an adult, male Lissotriton helveticus. It was the most amazing creature i had ever seen ( i was about 6), with the incredible colors, the weird feet....i also thought they were extremely poisonous at the time, which made it all the more fascinating and cool.

That's awesome, Azhael. Nice that you had an impression made on you at such an early age. For me, it came much later as I had always been a 'turtle' person, of which I have many great stories. But when I fell in love with salamanders I was around 30. We had a group of guys that would go out and do night herping in Spring. I got a call at around 2 AM to go out to a place on Long Island, New York about an hour from where I was living at the time. It was a rainy night in early March when we got to the convergence of two breeding ponds. What awaited there was magic. The place was choked with spotted salamanders crossing the roadway. We shined our light down the special storm drains that were built for them and all you could see was a sea of yellow dots moving to the ponds. Literally thousands. We found Wood frogs (R. sylvatica), Spring Peepers (H. crucifer) and some other type of smaller more slender salamander that we couldn't readily identify. The sound was deafening. If I was two feet from you we couldn't have had a conversation. We also heard Grey Treefrogs (H. versicolor) calling. Basically we would walk up and down the street with a flashlight and about once per minute someone would say, 'here's one'. I think the formula of flashlight, good drink, and salamander migration is about as grand an evening as people like us could ask for.

I used to spend hours wandering through ditches, a river and sunken roads on my grandfathers farm. He showed me so much.
Spring time was always exciting, as the pond in the pig field would magically fill with zillions of toads and frogs. The spawn would fascinate me. I can still see the edges of the pond rippling with tadpoles.
I remember seeing in a local pet shop a tank of axolotl..I had a book at home that had them in so I would dream of owning one. 35 or so years later I found my own..and Caudata.org. Reading through pages and pages of posts here then led me to get more caudata, ...I fear the addiction will not stop.

Farm ponds seem to be wonderful places for those kind of experiences. Again it is so nice that you had a sort of mentor who would lovingly guide you to an appreciation of nature. That was a lovely story, Julia. And I can see that Caudata.org is going to get me in a lather about owning amphibians again... I feel the 'fever'. LOL!

I remember newting for as long as I can think back. I was known to sneak away from Kindergarten and later elementary school because I found the newt pond down the street more interesting. I caught newts at that pond w. my childhood buddies.

I had one truly defining experience: when I was about 12, I found the most wonderful pond about 15 miles from our house in a field in a forest. It had all 4 German Triturus species (Triturus alpestris, helveticus, cristatus and vulgaris), plus Bombina variegata, Hyla arborea, grass frogs and common toads, grass snakes, slow worms and lizards - everything!

Many weekends, I'd ride my bike there and spend the whole day newt- watching. I sooo wanted to observe tham at their breeding games, but whenever I waded into the water, the pond scum would come up and the whole pond would cloud over and the newts would skitter away. So one fine day in May I packed my bathing suit, snorkel mask, and a blow-up rubber float thingy we brought from vacation in Spain and peddled my bike to the pond. I blew up the float and put the mask on, and then I floated face-down in the pond water, looking down upon the newts.

Because I was floating motionless the newts didn't feel threatened - I must have been like flotsam or a big cloud to them. I saw everything - mating games, tail fanning, up to 5 males harassing one female, males courting the wrong species of females, I saw a crested newt catch and eat a leech, and - highlight of the day - saw a grass snake slip into the pond and swim past me and dive under the surface, obviously looking for newts to catch.

That was one of the coolest days of my childhood - I felt the tingle of discovery for weeks after that, and by then I was pretty sure I wanted to be a biologist

My boyfriend (marine biologist) took me newting for an early date...those little faces were so cute, and they had some in a tank in their office. I was in love (with the newts). I couldn't wait to get my own house so I could have a tank with my own, which I did within two years.
Then I found caudata, and also learned that there were zillions of species of newts, and the rest is history.

WOW, Molch! I think I would have discovered religion after such a transcendental moment such as that. Lovely to know that we have the opportunity to just literally immerse ourselves into Nature in all of her glory. Nice to see you, as well as Otterwoman, made the transition to husbandry and stewardship over some of our planet's most intriguing fauna. These little guys sure are easy to love. Thanks for sharing!

I'd always been in to looking under stones and logs when I was a child,and went on pond dipping days with my parents quite often (there is a phot of me, barely able to walk, with a fishing net next to a stream). However, newts were just one of the cool things one could catch and we got them so rarely that I didn't have much chane to get to know them. Then, my uncle's ex-wife's father (they were stil married at the time) brough over a bucket of smooth newts that he had found while cleaning out some drains. We put them into our small garden pond and, miracle of miracles, they actually stayed to breed. I was hooked after that!
Until last year, my family always went to the same farm in Wales for the Summer holiday, and the pond there was also heaving with smooth and palmate newts, as well as the hundreds of common toads one could find around the farm. I think those holidays sealed the deal!

Unfortunately, I did make some mistakes in husbandry due to ignorance (fortunately only one fatality), but I started with out of date books at the library, which told me not to use heaters (unlike the petshop!) and then i found caudata.org, which taught me the rest!

Its good to read everyone else's experiences. A newt date, Dawn....what a good idea!

C

That's awesome, Froggy. I can't think of a better vacation OR date, then to go herping. That would be a great way to get to know a prospective partner. I always said a zoo is the best first date. If a partner loves animals, that's a very good sign. Though when I saw Tiger Salamanders under the ice one frozen Valentine's Day, I did question my sanity... LOL!

Opacum said:

WOW, Molch! I think I would have discovered religion after such a transcendental moment such as that.

Click to expand...

well, I went into the other camp and discovered science instead :rofl:.

another cool experience: I wanted to see the fire salamanders lay their larva. I knew from books they would go to the water and hang their butts in and flop flop, the larva come out. So I sat by a creek night after night (slipped out of the house after my Mom went to sleep) with my flashlight. I'd see fire salamanders crawl around and followed them around in the dark. I never saw one lay her larva though.

One evening at dusk, I took a nap by the creek and something stirred nearby and woke me. As I was lying there motionless, a polecat appeared and I watched it hunt and snuffle all around the creek, just feet away. I learned that you can watch just about any kind of wildlife, no matter how shy or secretive, if you're patient enough and remain very quiet.

Germany was a cool place to grow up: it's a densely populated country, but nevertheless it has large forests and lots of wildlife. And I had tons of freedom to roam. As long as I wasn't in the hospital or on the front page, my Mom didn't care where I was or what I was doing. Kids today seem so confined by comparison, and do they ever go out and explore the woods anymore? I don't know why not, because the woods are still there, eh?

I did eventually see a fire salamnder lay her larva - in my terrarium, with my Mom and me watching on in amazement.

Nothing wrong with Science, Molch...LOL! That was so neat to have that experience with your Mom. My Mom is an absolute sweetheart, but she does NOT like the feeder bugs so she would run from creepy crawlies. I loved Germany when I visited Munich, but alas, no time for herps. Yeah, I know what you mean about kids today... All this tech at their disposal tempts them away from Nature. I saw kids playing football the other day and I was so happy to see them out enjoying the Autumn air. The woods have always been an inviting place to me, and the folks here love to camp in them; but the little things under their feet hold little to no interest. Though hunting here is huge! Really wonderful that you can take things that you had such a fascination in and breed them! I hope to be there some day myself.

A childhood without dirt, scratched kness, mud, tadpoles and frogs is not a childhood...
I have friends of more or less my age that have never been out in a forest,catching insects or whatever...it just makes me sad xD
I´ve always been thankful that my parents promoted that i splashed around in puddles, caught toads and lizards and climbed trees, i had a great childhood xD

I'm with you Azhael... Being outdoors gives you respect for the flora and fauna of the world and there is no finer experience than that. That is what childhoods are made of. :happy:

Im sorry about the subject change but I have to ask
What animal is your avatar Opacum? I have never seen anything like that.
lea

Diplocaulus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Hi Lea. It is my favorite amphibian of all time dating back to the Permian age. They topped out at around 3'. It would be pretty groovy to see these guys brought back, eh?

he is just so cool. thanks for the link. This site/forum has shown me so many animals i never knew where around.
lea

My pleasure. Enjoy!