T. wenxianensis

They're still doing fine, never eating as often or as much as I'd like, but alive and well.

I am making a small attempt at seeing if they're interested in breeding. I moved them to a cooler area of the house, in a small setup.

5cm humus, plenty of beech leaves, a shallow dish with a few mm of water.


Any suggestions are welcome. At the moment I don't even know if I have a male and a female.

Ester:

How large are your two? Are they active at all? Are they hydrophobic or do they soak?

Such a rare species.

GE

Normally speaking they hide 99% of the time. They even dig themselves into the substrate to get further underneath a large piece of bark. I have never seen them dig real tunnels.

I can only tell them apart because one is a bit plumper than the other. This might be more of a dietary difference than a sexual characteristic though as one of them will only take earth worms, and the other nothing but wax moth larvae.
One of them will take food from tweezers, the other usually not. So far I am too happy when they eat and take their huge dumps (easily 1,5cm long, smelly and with a lot of fiber). They don't often produce any noticeable excrement for that matter. I will find one once a month at best.

They are both between 12 and 13cm long. The skin is hydrophobe. What's making me wonder (and concerned) is that they've been uncharacteristically active today. Sitting in plain view even at the moment. I can't tell if there's something wrong with the humidity, the temperature or if the change of housing has brought this on.

I will be checking on them several times a day for the next few days to see how things go.

Sals will often react to a change of housing by being more active than usual for the first couple of days. My fire sals and T. shanjing did this too, whenever I changed their substrate. They should settle in.

Ester:

I'd be interested in seeing how you have these two newts housed.

GE

At the moment I have them in a small setup 30x20x20cm as they never move far from where they decide to settle.
There is a 2cm layer of humus (coconut fiber) in the setup mixed with some shredded beech tree leaves. There is a 1cm layer of dry beech tree leaves on top. On one side I placed a plastic plant dish (diameter 14cm, depth 1cm) which I refill to about 0.5cm about once every 2-3 weeks.
The setup is rather wet, but not soaking. The top layer of leaves is dry, so they can sit on a leaf if they want to be dry. They can be found both in direct contact with the wet soil and on some leaves.
The temp is variable, next to the tilted kitchen window ranging from 14C to 19C. They appear to be doing ok.
I feed one of them wax worms, the other earth worms. They are very picky eaters but when offered the right food, will eat without much fuss.

Interesting. Good update and info. I wonder if anyone else on this board keeps wenxianensis?

Thanks Ester.