Oddly marked C. e. popei

The garden idea sounds great for you. Probably need some mesh netting around a frame as you mentioned. Do you guys have problems with any sort of outdoor predators?(cats, some Japanese equivalent of the raccoon maybe?) I've also wondered if you could set up a huge naturalistic woodland terrarium complete with several food sources and simply release them in their and hope for the best.

I'm currently feeding chopped up redworms. Using the smaller worms cut up into pieces and placed around the tank. I offer springtails also but oddly enough these guys didn't have very much interest in them either(just stare at them and can't make up their mind which one to go for). Maybe I oughtta look into crickets. Mosquito larvae in a small dish were taken also but these are a pain, but they did work as they wriggled enough to attract attention.

On the morph,it is surprising when you compare the photos. In the last photo their is no trace of the color that was originally between the stripes. I can still pick him out as he has more and brighter orange than the rest still on him.

(Message edited by fishkeeper on June 26, 2006)

(Message edited by fishkeeper on June 26, 2006)

I am also experiencing an overabundance of C. e. popei morphs. I've actually stopped raising the larvae, yet they continue to morph out (at surprisingly robust sizes) from the adult tank. Mine are growing well on a diet of mostly fruit flies, which I raise myself. With all the mouths to feed, I'm having trouble keeping up

O. Jennifer, do you think the WC and CB different in coloring has to do with the natural selection of a darker variate of the newts so that they are more protective with the camuflauge?

Jen, funny that you mentioned that when you did as I just bought a batch of flightless fruit flies the other day and they're feeding well on those. I might try to raise flies too to reduce my cricket bill.

I'd like to get them started on frozen bloodworm fed by hand in the hope of training them to eventually eat from a dish as I've done before, but the more time I spend feeding ensicauda morphs, the less time I have for other animals.

Joseph�Awe do have cats and "tanuki" (racoon-dogs) around our house but my main concern would be the huge and fearsome crows we got here. The outdoor terrarium idea is nice. I already have plans for a small pond. I should consider making the pond part of a biotope, and make that escape-proof instead of the pond itself. I can easily screen off the garden area directly under our wooden deck If only the wife would allow it...

(Message edited by TJ on June 28, 2006)

Tim/Jenn: Any aphids round the house? Those were snapped up by my morphs. Don't think they are much nutritionally though.

On the terrarium I was actually thinking of a large indoor setup...don't know if they would get much extra food from eating any little worms or bugs they come across inside...outside you'd certainly not have to feed as much! Of course, getting to the rest of your garden might become a bit more inconvenient.

Hi Ian, no, I do not think the difference in coloration between WC and CB is due to natural selection for camouflage. Most of us are raising juveniles that are only first or second generation away from WC parents, so there has not been enough generations for any selection to happen. I speculate that there is something about the CB environment (diet or light I think) that causes them to have less black pigment.

Joseph, I have fed mine with some aphids, but fortunately the aphid infestation of my greenhouse has subsided, so I don't have them any more. I think aphids are probably just as nutritious as any other insect, but it's hard to collect very many of them.

I also have some ideas about a semi-wild setup for morphs in my greenhouse. You guys have inspired me to give this a try. When (if?) I get it set up, I'll post a photo on a separate thread.

Very interesting topic. It will be wonderful to see in generations to come what the colour will ultimately come to look like, and how it will differ from individual to individual........again, very interesting!

They probably get much more exposure to light as morphs in captivity than in the wild. Tim, have you ever found wild C. e. popei...or heck Cynops morphs of these sizes? I imagine at this age many are busy hiding away deep under or inside of some decaying log...and providing no human intrudes on them seldom ever get any light. They might come out in the evening to forage in the undergrowth but that is about it I'd guess.

In contrast in captivity they get some light in one way or another, whether it is from tank lighting, ambient room lighting, coming out from hiding to get at food the keeper is feeding etc.

To Tim- I wish my marms would even feed in front of me.

Tim, how do rice flour beetles sound to you? I have no idea how healthy they are for the morphs but I tried a few and they went for em eagerly. I suspect they are harder shelled than most foods ought to be so should only be used as a treat. The morphs seemed to take extra time "crunching" them though.

Hi Joseph. Sorry for my slow reply.

No, I've never found any wild C. ensicauda morphs or juveniles. Just larvae, adults and (rarely) subadults. I think you surmise correctly about them.

I'm not familiar with "rice flour beetles" though I might recognize them by their Japanese name Anyway, I'm all set now as I've been breeding flightless fruit flies over the past couple of weeks. I've been pretty successful at it, after a slow start. Now I have so many flies to deal with (and two types at that) that I'm having to release lots of them outside. The morphs go for them, and so do my hynobiids. With flies and wax worms available, I'm managing fine now without pinhead crickets. I'll look into the flour beetle thing but what with tending to fruit flies and wax worms and tubifex worms and crickets and newt and salamander larvae and morphs and juvies and adults (not to mention infant, dogs, etc.), I'm not sure I'd have time to tackle anything else
Anyway, this is what I used before,

http://www2.wbs.ne.jp/~tamamizu/netshop/netshop.sp08.jpg

I didn't do well with them though

Simon, I urge you to keep practicing with your marms, as they're really quite bold when it comes to eating -- mine are, at least The adults I have now were like that when I got them as babies, and now their babies are like that too -- so it seems to be a genetic trait. I assumed it was a trait of the species as a whole, but maybe that's not the case...?

(Message edited by TJ on July 18, 2006)

Tim: Silverfish? How did that go?

If you ever find any morphs in the wild I'd love to see!

Rice flour beetles isn't the correct name...my bad. Tribolium confuscum the confused flour beetle. They are very low maintenance(just keep a jar a flour somewhere and replace it occasionally), and my larvae seem to go for them. They are probably not a good staple as the shells are a bit tough, but people who keep dart frogs use them extensively with little problems. Then again, dart frogs eat things like ants and beetles in the wild alot so are probably more used to this. On this topic these are the only food items I've seen the morph in this thread take. While he ignores or glances at worms he rushes to take these from forceps eagerly.(he's now practically indistinguishable from the others and about 1/2 the size of the others).

Ah, silverfish are they? Well, they didn't go well, mainly because I didn't concentrate on what I was doing, or rather what I was supposed to be doing. Plus, they're a little quick for morphs to easily catch, wouldn't you say?

Here's how I'm doing with the fruitfly culturing (2 fly types -- large and small):





I'll be making up some fresh cultures tonight

Wow those look like they are going well! You should figure out a way to harvest the maggots...I know their are ways but do not remember.

Are you using a commercial media or some kind of homemade recipe?

Actually I never raised silverfish...only Tribolium confuscum so no experience. Or maybe I'm misreading the post?

Also, some might remember how I lost the last of last years orientalis morphs by going on a one week out of town trip and leaving them under the care of my sis(not her fault as she followed the instructions to the letter). In any case the same thing came up again. However, I was pleasantly surprised upon returning home that their were no casualties. Two things I changed
-The newts container was placed inside a coolerbox with a thermometer. Once-twice a day a few icecubes would be added to keep the temperature of the water around 75F. This was the most obvious and testable change.
-they got worms as well as RFB. However, this may not have mattered as the orientalis morphs last year stopped eating the day after I left.
-These were mainly ensicauda morphs and were kept over coco-fiber substrate as opposed to just in a bare setup. The two orientalis survived as well but were likely larger than the ones I left with her last time.

Anyway, just wanted to share this success. According to people who were in town all week we broke a temperature record and were over 105 for 5 days in a row or something!

How about baby silkworms? If you know anyone who raises them the babies look perfect size.

(Message edited by fishkeeper on July 29, 2006)

(Message edited by fishkeeper on July 29, 2006)

Hi Joseph, congrats on that success.

To make the fruitfly medium, I'm using a commercial media. The powder goes into a large plastic cup, I sprinkle in a bit of yeast, add some water and then stir, I keep adding water until the consistency is just about right. Then I fold and add a piece of firm paper towel, add some adult flies, and it's ready. I keep them between 27 C and 30 C as I'm told that they won't breed welll at anything hotter or colder than that. In that last photo, the cup with the blue-green media is the starter culture (different media). The one on the far left is one that's about to expire. It's going great. Just last night, I checked a newly prepared cup and it was absolutely swarming with maggots.

I once tried silkworms (not babies though) but the newts didn't like them at all, spat them out.

Well I tried 3 newly hatched silkworms with the morphs and they were accepted happily. Perfect size too. One morph seemed a bit uncertain about the rather fuzzy bodies but eventually gulped that one and went for another.

take a bottle top and put the fruitfly medium in it,then place the bottle top in your tank and add some fruitflies.the fruitflies will lay their eggs in the medium and after a week maggots will crawl out of the bottle top .this way ,you will have a constant food source in your tank.

Hey Tim, What dose your little white larvae look like now? I love the one that is in the Fourth pic. that is so cool looking.

They are growing


and eating redworm bits and Tribolium larvae.








And a shot of the little bugger before he went down the hatch.

They look good, are these the one's you were talking to me about?