C. cyanurus egg-laying season begins

Hmmm...I'm not sure what to make of all this. Some of it doesn't jibe with my experience. As for the larvae, however, I found them very easy to raise and deaths were very rare. The morphs...well, that was something entirely different

Ed, thanks for the tips, and Paul, thanks for the link. When you say you found no difference between the C. cyanurus morphs and those of other Cynops species, do you mean also to suggest that the morphs/juvies were actively moving around in their container as is the case, in my experience, with C. ensicauda and C. pyrrhogaster within just a few days of their morphing? Were they not shy and...sluggish (for lack of a better word)?

And how about what Ed said about 1/3 of the eggs not developing or only partly developing before getting hit by fungus? Have others experienced this? I can't recall losing that proportion of eggs, but will try and keep track this time around.

It's not surprising to me what Ed said about the difficulty in getting C. ensicauda juvies to go aquatic. I've seen hundreds if not thousands of C. ensicauda in the wild (in the course of three trips) but I've surprisingly never come across an aquatic juvenile or subadult. While I've seen far, far less C. pyrrhogaster in the wild in terms of sheer numbers, I did once find an aquatic subadult....if all that means anything

It would be very interesting to know how C. cyanurus are in the wild. Do subadults grow to maturity on the land or in the water, or a combination of both? Do they opportunistically utilize the water to catch food? Do they reach sexual maturity as quickly as they do in captivity? There still seems to be almost no information on their life history....

Hi Paul,

I am not referring to them as adults or even subadults but as new metamorphs. (Just to make sure we are talking about the same life stage).
If kept cool enough, and not fed, C. cyanurus readily returns to the water as a metamorph while C. pyrrogaster is a little harder to get to return and C. e. popei has been in my experience very difficult (the best I could get them to do was go into the water to feed and once done they would climb back out of the water).

Well, Tim, it sounds like you're volunteering for a little research... (I would suggest checking with Erik Keyster as he may have some better information).

Ed

You might have said this before, Ed, but how deep do you keep the water during this adjustment period (for C. cyanurus)?

You mentioned keeping the morphs cool when forcing the majority of the larvae to become aquatic by not feeding them anything above the water level. Any reason why this would not work as well at higher temperatures? I don't recall, but the room temperature in my case was surely at least 21C and maybe as high as 23C. This year, I will for the first time allow it to fall well below 20C as my wife's chameleon no longer shares the newtroom and her overgrown goldfish don't pose a problem temperature-wise. Frank. Paul and any others, what were the temperatures at which your morphs were raised?

Also, Ed, can you explain what you said about how keeping them in a enclosure with a lot of plants that form surface mats keeps them cool? You mean by virtue of their proximity to the water? Any photos that you could share to illustrate this?

Ah, indeed I was planning a China trip for December and even have a free ticket there that expires at the end of the year. But time and money constraints pretty much rule it out. First part of next year, hopefully.

hi Tim,
snip "You might have said this before, Ed, but how deep do you keep the water during this adjustment period (for C. cyanurus)? "endsnip

About 1 inch (2.5 cm) deep.

snip "You mentioned keeping the morphs cool when forcing the majority of the larvae to become aquatic by not feeding them anything above the water level. Any reason why this would not work as well at higher temperatures? I don't recall, but the room temperature in my case was surely at least 21C and maybe as high as 23C."endsnip

What I have seen is that the warmer the temperature, the less likely a group of metamorphs is to adjust to aquatic conditions. (what I see is that they begin to climb the walls to get away from the water).

snip" Also, Ed, can you explain what you said about how keeping them in a enclosure with a lot of plants that form surface mats keeps them cool? "endsnip

What I was trying to say is that I keep them in those conditions with the surface mats and keep them cool not that the plants keep them cool...

snip "Any photos that you could share to illustrate this?"

my digital is being cranky but I will see what I can do..

Ed

Thanks for those clarifications, Ed. In fact, that's exactly what happened when I put them in a mostly aquatic environment -- they scaled the glass and stayed up there, and when they came down, they mostly drowned. There's definitely a lesson to be learned here...

You contrasted C. cyanurus with C. pyrrhogaster and C. ensicauda in this respect, but what's your experience (and others) with getting C. orientalis morphs to go aquatic? I'm particularly interested because I have one now that I've noticed in the water for at least a week now despite loss of gills.

By the way, some people may recall this old discussion on getting Cynops morphs and/or juveniles to become aquatic:

http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/13/11143.html

Ralf's C. ensicauda caresheet mentioned there has long since been completed and can be found at:

http://www.caudata.org/cc/species/Cynops/C_ensicauda.shtml

O.k. - different conditions!
I bring my Cynops juvenile back to water some months after metamorphosis. The first months I always keep them on land.
The temperature than always is clearly lower then 20 °C - best temperature I think is approximately 18°C for C. ensicauda and orientalis. Usual lower for pyrrhogaster. But have a large temperature amplitude!
Paul

Hi Tim,

I would suspect that orientalis in this respect would be closer to cyanurus than to ensicauda. (I am sorry to say that I haven't tried it with C. orientalis mainly due to not having access to eggs or newly hatched larva. (I don't have the space currently to set up a breeding colony of orientalis).

I don't have time to search for it at the moment, but I think there was also a discussion on this topic within the last two years...

Ed

Hi Paul,

When dealing with C. cyanurus, I have been able to get them to return to a fully aquatic stage between 2-4 weeks post metamorphosis.
It took a little over a month to begin to see some good results with pyrrogaster and I had to supplementaly feed some of the metamorphs for about 2 months before they returned to the aquatic stage. However like C. cyanurus, C. pyrrogaster then shows amazingly rapid growth and in C. cyanurus can reach sexual maturity within the year (the earliest I have seen is within six months of becoming fully aquatic again, (dependent of course on how heavily they are fed).

Ed

Hi Ed

never tried it so early!
Find clearly difference between my pyrrhogaster from Niigata and Kanagawa Prefecture - also in time to grow up.

C. orientalis is more like my Kanagawa pyrrhogaster.

Paul

FWIW, when rearing C. orientalis morphs, the cooler they were, they more aquatic, but only if there was absolutely no water movement. One gently bubbling airstone and they were out of the water!
Ed? Tim? Water movement?

When I initially switch them over the water is not in motion or aerated. Once they are reguarly aquatic I don't have any problems but I haven't compared the two methods. I do not aerate the water as it allows me to more easily monitor the metamorphs to see if they are feeding.

Ed

Sounds like there is a critical mass of experience here that would justify a full-length article for Caudate Culture on the subject of raising Cynops from metamorphosis, written by somebody with a record of repeated success. It would be nice to also have, as a follow-on article, a compilation of other people's experiences, especially as different things, done in different ways, work for different people. Jennifer's CC article Raising Newts from Eggs at:

http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/raising.shtm

...is indeed very helpful, but there's scope for expansion/elaboration when it comes to the post-metamorphosis stages of development.

I'd be happy to contribute photos and experiences showing what <u>not</u> to do

<font size="-2">(though I am doing pretty well these days raising post-morph C. ensicauda)
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orientalis do seem a little easier than popei based on very limited experience(bad luck and ended up with only one from last years breeding). This one was not hard at all to coax to be semiaquatic in a few months. One I've been raising for over a year still switches between aquatic and terrestrial though.

Also, Tim, how sure are you that is an orientalis? If it is it has some weird markings on it.

Hi Joseph,

I agree the markings are strange, but it was born and raised in the C. orientalis tank -- from which it has never been removed -- and also I never moved any possibly egg-laden plants into that tank from other tanks.

Typical orientalis juvenile!
Paul

Hehe, thanks for that confirmation, Paul.

I don't recall seeing so many tiny white specks on C. orientalis morphs I had before. but the use of a camera flash sometimes results in markings becoming visible that aren't so easily noticed under normal lighting conditions.

I had bad experiences with all named Cynops spec when I tried to raise them in a semi aquatic setup. So now all of them have to stay on land for at least 3 months! Also I found it crucial to keep them warm enough (18-22°C should be fine).