Bad shots of a rare event

remember this thread?http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/13/41697.html?1124555990 well the trio didnt work out-the one in the shot above the other 2 kept getting her butt kicked, but the other 2 are doing fabulous together. so fabulous in fact that i have seen breeding a couple of times...but still no results, i was able the other day to get some BAD shots of them at it, feeding excitement will sometimes trigger this. first 2 semi good shots of the excited male and his dame

here is a shot of the male getting ready to deposit-the female has been following him around nipping at his tail spots and he is drawing in his tail in ever tightening undulations, unfortunately at this point the female got side tracked for a moment

here he is with her attention back on his tail, she is in the process of triggering him to release -note his elevated hindquarters

here is a shot after deposition, the female walked to the side of it and didnt attempt to pick it up. the red pointer is of the actual spermatophore but it can be seen better in the reflection where the yellow pointer is pointing


(Message edited by paris on December 17, 2005)

Paris, any shot is better than none at all! I could clearly see that the spermatophore is being deposited!

hey paris
this shots are very good mine P.labiatus did that to but all of my pic's are nothing to see about the dance and the breeding

greets rene

Nice going PAris! What sort of tempereatures are they at?
Chris

That's great to see a spermatophore! What temperature are they at? I'm wondering if their requirements may be similar to N. strauchii - real cold, and lots of rocks for laying. If they don't "produce" soon, I'd float the idea of getting them colder for a few weeks and see if that helps.

problem is they do it sporadically, and other pairs have done it too-but no results, this has happened for years for me. i feel its not the males who are not ready but the females, they are interested enough in triggering it but not physically ready. i havent tried to trigger them on purpose, its usually food that will get them going, nor have i tried separating them for a while which is what supposed to also help. i have seen this with my pachy A, brevipes and labiatum. here are two other shots i took a while back of a separate couple

this is a bad picture of a spermataphore stuck to the underside of her tail.

heey

I had the same my male is very intrested
I place him with 3 female's and all didn't intrest in the male

Paris and Rene, what temperatures did you keep them when you observed courtship?

From my (and others') experience with N. strauchii, these animals will have courtship at moderate temperature (16C), which many houses are able to provide indoors in winter. But the females don't lay eggs unless they spend some time in serious coldness (<12C), and then they lay eggs as the temperature comes up to around 14C.

I would really like to try this kind of temperature cycle on Pachytriton, and see if it would work. There has got to be some reason these guys don't lay eggs in captivity, and I'd venture a wild guess that they just don't get cold enough.

jenni,
since it happens infrequently i am not sure what temps its related to, in the past i went for the range from 50 F to almost 70F, right now my animals are in the 60-70 range. if i put my mind too it i can follow the cycle the europeans used, which was lowering temps, separating them then reintroducing them..i have the paper somewhere

my tempreture's are aroud the 18C 17.5C
I tried to pout het in the garden were I have a tank it was 10C. but now she is bank in het own tank of 17C. and did not lay eggs

Are these Pachytriton labiatus

yes