E. guttolineata eggs

JMH · Dec 27, 2012

I just found some eggs in my E. guttolineata cage. I am currently trying to decide how I should go from here. Does anybody have any advice or ideas on what to do?

onetwentysix · Jan 1, 2013

You could go two routes; you could remove them, and hope they don't go bad, or you could leave them in place and hope the parents won't eat the eggs/larvae. A third route would be to remove the parents, I suppose.

Keep in mind that they'll take well over a year to morph, and you'll need to find someone to give or sell them to if you don't want to keep them all after that.

That said, congrats! I think it's really neat, and not a lot of people bother/try to breed a lot of our natives. Good luck with them!

Lamb · Jan 1, 2013

onetwentysix said:
Keep in mind that they'll take well over a year to morph

The larva wont necessarily take that long to go through metamorphosis. From my field and lab experience with larval E. guttolineata in southern Mississippi, this species can take around 6 months to morph out. The larval period for E. guttolineata will differ based on locality, with higher elevation sites tending to have longer larval periods.

I have a gravid female E. guttolineata in the lab that I am hoping will oviposit. What temperature is the water in your tank? And what have you been feeding your adults?

If the eggs hatch, you may want to try feeding the hatchlings fairy shrimp from Arizona Fairy Shrimp, Clam Shrimp, Triops, Water Flea Information.. I feed these to the smallest individuals that I keep, and the fairy shrimp are pretty easy to produce.

Cool news! Keep us posted.

JMH · Jan 2, 2013

I am keeping the water around 58-64? F, I had them in the winter cycle but I didn't get the temperatures I wanted, then I found the eggs so I didn't bother with the temps. It looks like a few of the eggs may have been eaten, the white yolk has disappeared in most of the eggs so I am assuming they were eaten. There are still three eggs that look good though. How many eggs will a female usually lay? I had originally found no more than 2. I am currently feeding appropriately sized dusted crickets about twice a week, I haven't gotten around to offering worms or more nutritious foods yet, but it appears the crickets have worked well.

JMH · Jan 2, 2013

Sorry, I meant to say no more than 12 eggs.

Lamb · Jan 4, 2013

Jake Hutton said:
How many eggs will a female usually lay? I had originally found no more than [12].

The literature I've read suggests they don't lay more than around 20 eggs.

JMH · Jan 9, 2013

Okay, do they lay multiple clutches per season? I separated one egg into a small container and left the other two. One seems to be in a location that none of the salamanders can really get to and the other is hidden under a rock. It looks like the embryos are beginning to form, so I am assuming these three eggs are good. Everything I have read said they take about a month to hatch, does that sound about right? Also, off hand do you know how many people have successfully bred them?

taherman · Jan 12, 2013

Our longtails lay a LOT of eggs at the zoo, maybe 50/female? They are large adults though and multiple lay at once, so we have hundreds in the same location. I have also seen lucifuga eating the longicauda eggs in the exhibit. The big Eurycea do not exhibit any parental care of the eggs. I think our longicauda are from the edge of an integrade zone with guttolineata, as they are really strange looking with lots of black pigment.

Best bet if you actually want to hatch them is to carefully dip them out with a spoon and put them in an inch or so of clean dechlorinated water in a clean deli cup. Keep at 55-65F, and remove any eggs you see that develop fungus or are obviously bad. They hatch in a month or so, can be started on brine shrimp nauplii until they are large enough to take blackworm or whiteworm pieces. They usually morph in less than a year but I've had a few holdouts that will develop into unusually large larvae and stay aquatic for many months longer than their siblings.

Tim

JMH · Jan 23, 2013

I had three eggs left, the one I separated into a deli cup went bad and another one in the back of the tank went bad as well. One seemed to be developing and healthy, then I noticed that the jelly sac had been broken. So,I lost the last egg as well.

Now I have begun to offer worms as the majority of the diet for about a month or so, then I will slowly switch back to dusted crickets and occasionally offer worms. Hopefully I will get another clutch out of them this season, a year is a long time...

Any suggestions for next time? I have considered putting the next clutch of eggs in one of those fish separating cages so the other salamanders cant eat the eggs, I will look into it a bit more though.

JMH · Jan 31, 2013

So, I discovered a small larva in the tank yesterday, but it looks like it hasn't fully absorbed its yolk (is that the amphibian term). It was moving around and seemed to be healthy. I might have also seen another, but I am not sure. I will try to get pictures, which will be quite difficult.

Todd Pierson · Feb 10, 2013

Very cool! In my experience, it seems that larvae are absent from the water in Athens during the fall, indicating that they metamorphose after ~six months. I did recently find about a dozen large larvae inhabiting a slow pool of a mountain stream in Towns Co, GA that would probably metamorphose this coming spring/summer, indicating an extended larval period there.

Here is a larva from Athens, GA:

And one from higher elevation in Towns County.

Do you have any photographs of the hatchlings? I'd be very interested in seeing what they look like.

JMH · Feb 14, 2013

So far I have found two larvae in the tank and wouldnt be supprised if there were more.I managed to get one good picture, my glass is a bit dirty and I keep getting a bad glare while trying to get a decent picture. I shall keep on trying though. But here is a picture of one of the larvae.

gar4016 · Feb 14, 2013

That looks like pretty good picture to me. Is it just me, or is it already starting to develop it's legs?

Todd Pierson · Feb 15, 2013

Very cool! Thanks for the photograph.

JMH · Feb 22, 2013

I just found another larvae in the water. So now I have three larvae that I have seen, this far. I try and get some better pictures soon.

JMH · Mar 13, 2013

Correction, I have seen 7 larvae in the water. So that means the clutch must have been at least 17-18 eggs (that I know of thus far). They seem to be growing just fine, I can see their limbs already. The terrarium is in my basement so the water will be cool for awhile, so i'm expecting a bit longer of a larval phase for them. Still working on getting better quality pictures, they are just so hard to find in the water and to catch so I can put them into another container to get better pictures. Anyone have a suggestion?

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