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Giant T. verrucosus larvae!

Chinadog

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These 2015 T verrucosus larvae are almost a year old now, but they show no signs of morphing yet, even though they are well over 10cm and still growing!
All the rest from their batch morphed in October at a much smaller size and were fed the exactly same food and kept in identical water chemistry, but were given their own 15 gallon tank, whereas the giant ones have lived with their parents the whole time. I can only think it's the water depth of 600mm and/or the relatively large water volume that's kept them from changing? If anything I would have guessed the ones that live with their parents would be first to mature due to the competition for food with the adults, not the other way round!
The pic with the ruler isn't very scientific I know, but it's rare to see them out in the open like that.
Has anybody else had Tylo larvae get huge?
 

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Sith the turtle

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Wow, he looks like a Tiger salamander larvae in those photos! I did some searching on CC, and the larvae typically grow from 5-7 cm, but some don't morph until they reach 12 cm! Yours is probably one that reaches upwards of 12 cm, but I have no idea how common it is/was
 

mr cyclone

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Yes I had several reach adulthood before morphing and always seemed to be more aggressive at feeding time. And the most I can remember they turned out female.
When I was in Gersfeld I saw Alex and Derk's Verrucosus group they where at least twice the bulk and size of my biggest adults , they must have been very old but they were gigantic about the same size as my adult yangi (sorry off subject )
I seemed to get a monster larvae every time raising a batch of eggs always one refused to morph and would eat everything
 

Chinadog

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It's funny you should say that, I've also noticed the big larvae attack their food with much more aggression. I wonder if some of it's to do with their larval mouth shape being so well suited to sucking in aquatic pray versus the adults mouths which are a compromise between terrestrial living as well as aquatic?
 

Chinadog

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Hmm, I just looked at some pics of T. shanorum, they do look very similar! As I understand it though, the strain I keep are descended from pet trade animals without any details of where they were collected, so I'll probably never know what they really are.
 

Sith the turtle

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Unless you could get a dna sample from one of your Tylototriton and find a herpetologist to find out, but I doubt it. I almost did that when I couldn't find what locality my H.chrysoscelis were, good thing I found out that the H.versicolor weren't found in GA!
 

ntny

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hi folks

according to Paul Bachhausen.
http://www.salamanderseiten.de/tylototriton/verrucosus/tytototriton_verrucosus.html
As a result of the new descriptions, most of the animals in Europe as Tylototriton verrucosus became a new species - Tylototriton shanorum .
So also the newts we hold!:D

Hmm, I just looked at some pics of T. shanorum, they do look very similar! As I understand it though, the strain I keep are descended from pet trade animals without any details of where they were collected, so I'll probably never know what they really are.
 
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