Olms
Hi guys,
there is no sense at all in keeping proteus in captivity. Their lethal temperature maximum is around 10-12 °C, they can not stand light or even the slightest pollution of water, so there are none at all in Europe (legally) in any private hands or zoos to my knowledge. Generalized it is simply impossible to offer appropriate conditions for them to even survive. Of course one could with a huge amount of technical installations such as A/C, filtering etc. But there won´t be any permit for collecting them nor a good chance for them to survive transportation. Compared, a hellbender is a pond newt.
There are some northamerican species looking very similar to proteus and are said by friends to be well for captive maintenance such as Typhlotriton.
Steffen