Taricha Rivularis photos

ok, due to much pressure from pin pin to post taricha pics i am giving in (plus i have a little time) and posting some here. i currently only have 2 and my male has only 1 eye thus eats poorly and is drastically under weight-so all these pics are of my female. to start with here is a pic of the belly from below-note the dark band across the vent area (and the huge hand like back feet!)


and some body shots


and finally a head shot to show off the black eyes

and to end it a pic from below of the arms-note pigment wraps around elbows-is in area that is not visible from above

what pressure?

Great descriptive Taricha pics.

Very nice pics, haven't seen much of rivularis. Are they rare or just difficult to keep?

Awesome Pics Paris.

jesper-they are both. they are not available on the pet trade and must be collected with a fishing license-the limit is 4 and they cannot be sold or traded-but the offspring can as long as you dont live in california (please correct me anyone if i have misread the on line phamphlet)

they are hard to keep as they ,more so than the other tarichas, prefer slow moving food. they also are the most reclusive and dont seem to have that human=food dispenser association like other tarichas (within a month of collection my torosa torosas became adept beggars). they are more shy than hungry in my experience and this creates a big issue for captive care and w/o good body weight this spills over into issues with captive breeding. i had about 14 larvae and lost one after another-2 had full colour and looked as if to morph but only 1 did, unfortunately i found it dead about a month later. admitibly some of my issues arise from the 7 miles distance between me and most of my caudates-i cannot check on them every day to catch possible heath issues before they can become fatal.

I have been raising a group of T. rivularis since last summer. The larvae did pretty well but I did have some loses. Although they are more reclusive and shy than other Taricha they still will eat out of my hand no problem and do great in captivity. I also have a male with one eye, when I collected it last spring it was on the verge of death but now is fat and healthy. Full recovery and over a year of hand feeding now. Nothing more special than other Taricha except for the red coloration but rarer by far for sure.
Went to see if I could come up with some more this past weekend. No luck again. I have yet to find them breeding. It is a short window that seems to vary each year. Maybe some larvae this summer.
-Travis

Do the larvae need better oxygenated water? They breed in streams usually I thought.

here are some more shots of t rivularis-this time its a male. i have one here of him being akward

unlike ambystomids these guys are usually more coordinated and even use their tail somewhat prehensilely-i have seen them use it to help them navigate down a steep embankment.

and finally - i usually dont do big pics but this one is good detail and its size allows for you to see the details more. to note if you can see it on your screen- is his pupil it is black but the eye surrounding it is not -its hard to describe, very dark brown/black. so though they appear to be black they really arent (i can do a close up in sunlight if needed)

That is one handsome Taricha. He doesn't look underweight and one-eyed anymore. Didja nurse him back to health?

no silly i got 2 boomerangs. the one eyed one is slowly putting on weight and will always be missing the eye - but i dont think you guys want a pic of a sick newt-although i could do a 'stages' series of photos of him getting better.