Mysterious Warty newt

Yesterday I bought 3 newts at a pet store under the title of paddle tail newts. To my great frustration I found that they were not in any of my amphibian keeping books. I went on the Internet and found out that they were definately not paddle tail newts, but they were probably some type of warty newt . They have very course skin, One's dark green and kind of mottled with a faint red dorsal stripe, another is light brown with a bright red dorsal stripe and to bright red stripes along it's side, and the third is a very dark grey and is relatively plain. They're very large, the largest (the grey one) is about 8 inches long, and the other two are about 7. They all have the same belly pattern and I have not been able to match it with any pictures on the web, each of the large orange blotches on their bellies is fringed with black and is further separated from the others by the newt's dorsal colour which occurs between the blotches. The pet store I bought them from doesn't know anything, when I told the guy at the counter I wanted to buy the newts he didn't know they were even in stock, and its not even a big pet store! What the pet store did know was that they ate blood worms and earthworms (I wouldn't be surprised I they ate fish as well) I also found the newts in an aquarium that had water about 4 inches deep, interrupted by large rocks, no plants, and two small filters (unfortunately I don't know if this is the correct environment for the animals let alone one to breed them in). At first, I thought they might be captive bred, but now I'm pretty sure they're wild caught judging that I haven't come across any guides on how to keep them). What are they, how do I keep them, how do I breed them, are they terratorial (one has a slightly damaged nose), when do they hibernate, and If should ever be so lucky as to breed them successfully how should I treat the eggs and larvae? They also appear to be expert escapers, while was making their aquarium I put them in steep sided bucket with a lid on top, the on that escaped must have stood on the tip of its tail and pushed the lid aside with its head, luckily I found it in the nick of time.

Benjamin, do you have any pictures of them ? This might help alot. The sizes you are talking about are quite large for most Paramesotriton so this botters me, I don't think you found P. deloustali because that's about the only warty newt with that belly. But I have seen a type of warty newt that got as large. do they have a slimy skin or a granulated skin ?? How about the eyen, is there a black strip through the iris or is it a normal eye ??

They have incredibly granulated skin and a line through the iris after looking extensively at pictures on the the internet I'm pretty sure they're not P. chinensis or P. caudopunctatus I'll I have to look up P.delostali

Without pictures it is impossible to tell, especially when males describe the animal (some people have colour blindness and see green where for others this is clearly not green). So please, try to get good pictures from the side, from the belly and from above, then there are certainly enough people here who can help you with identification.

I'm not sure there all the same species anymore today I found the light brown had a different under belly pattern quite like that of P caudopunctatus, and different from the other two. I'ld love to show you pictures but they're way to big for this site, or at least that what it says when I try to post them could give me some advice on how to attach a photo

Well Benjamin, if you want you can send them to my personal email adress and I will crop them down to the needed size and at the same time have a look at it.

I initially thought you were having several species and I only see the possibility of this getting larger.
Having a balck strip through the eyes also calculates out pachytriton & cynops (at least the more common ones I know about). So I think we are indeed talking about Paramesotriton, but at these sizes there's only one candidate and that's what's puzzling me. Unless they started harvesting those North Vietnamese specimens comercially (which would be pityfull)

One more question : do the animals have orange or yellow dots at the places where the limbs touch the body. P. chinensis has this and some of the younger deloustali also).

So I await your pictures but please not files larger then 10 mega each...

Benjamin
Could ypu also send the pics to to my email address?
I have a pair of very large Paramesotriton which seem to fit your description...
Chris

When I get them Chris I will post them here , os everybody can see them, ok ?

Here are the shots. I played with some levels and tried sharpening them. Overall the shots are not that clear and as such putiing a name tag on them will prove difficult

These are a bit too unclear : we can count out P. chinensis I think and also P. caudopunctatus.




This looks like a P. hongkongensis belly pattern

Sorry I missed the belly pattern : here it is

For me the belly patter points rather at P. hongkongensis. It's certainly not P. deloustali there the belly is orange not brick red and the pattern is different.

The one in the red plate is p.caudopunctatus. I bet an alvariño bottle. What you think Henk?
Best greetings
Yago

Sorry about the blurryness of the photos, the newts just move so fast, and its really difficult take pictures of them I'll try and take some clearer ones tomorrow. If I knew how to take pictures of them in their aquarium without glare from the water or glass I think the whole process would be a lot less stress full for both me and the newts they really get upset when they're disturbed.

The one newt in the red dish has a different belly pattern than the one shown, and this pattern does appear to match the pictures of P. caudopunctatus that I've seen on the web. That newt also has a peculiar bite on its nose.

Benjamin - to shoot a photo through glass, aim at an angle so that you don't get reflection. Also check to see if your camera has a macro function (the symbol is usually a flower). See:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/photographing.shtml

Thanks for the advice I have some decent photos now. I've noticed that the two newts with the same belly pattern constantly cuddle, sniff, and follow each other around the aquarium but there's no fanning involved is this unusual behaviour.

Looks like an unusually dark caudo in the red bowl to me too, from the head shape. The first one looks like hongkongensis. But are they the same newt? It's hard to tell much given the quality of those pics. Let's see the decent ones!

The one in the second pic looks like a couple of mine that I don't have a fix on.

I'd say "unusual behavior" is the fact that they're not fighting with each other, if that's indeed the case!

I don't know how to shrink pictures to post them yet could you tell me how.

The one in the bowl is almost definately a caudo. The shape of the head, greenish dorsum and red vertebral stripe indicates this. I have seen a couple of darker specimens like this and its exactly like it. The one in the top picture seems to be Hongkongensis, but without clearer shots its hard to tell. Is the second one granulated , or is that just the picture?
Which petshop did you get these in?
Chris

I got them at an aquatics shop inside of a garden center I forget its name. It seemed very good place for fish (especially marine fish) and pond supplies, the newts were healthy but obviously misclassified