Captive Breeding of Tylototriton in the U.K

mr cyclone · Nov 27, 2014

I am very curious , Is there anyone in the U.K that has bred any Tylototriton species other than Verrucosus since 2013 ?
I ask because I don't see any 2013/14 CB specimens other than Verrucosus in the hobby anymore.Have the Shanjing and kweichowensis breeders of past fizzled out?
All recent CB specimens I've seen or been offered have been imported from Europe
I hope their are some breeders still active,(even if secretive)

Chinadog · Nov 27, 2014

That's how it goes sometimes isn't it. Breeding a particular species once, then moving on to the next one is fair enough, but it does little to establish a decent head of animals breeding regularly in captivity. To me, truly succeeding with a species means over multiple generations, not just F1 babies. I often wonder how many species would have a long term future in the hobby if the imports of WC stuff were suddenly stopped.

JM29 · Nov 28, 2014

In my opinion, to have a long term captive future, a given species must be managed by a group of owners who make exchanges together and regularly have variously aged specimens.
Too many people manage breeding during several years, get rid of the youngs and then have problems with their finally old animals.

mr cyclone · Nov 28, 2014

At the moment Tylototriton WC still have demand ,I'm hopefull someone will reintroduce a UK CB of some sort

Azhael · Nov 28, 2014

Chinadog said:
I often wonder how many species would have a long term future in the hobby if the imports of WC stuff were suddenly stopped.

Me too, and i've heard it used as an excuse to continue promoting the WC market, which is simply missing the point entirely.
The key word is certainly the one JM used, management. Captive populations should and could be managed much better. Done properly, through colaboration among hobbyists and applying a bit of sense, steps could be taken to try and secure the future of a large variety of caudate populations in captivity.
Unfortunately that's currently a tiny fraction of the total volume of breeding that occurs, which is not doing captive populations any favours.

JM29 · Nov 29, 2014

Management, some rules :

A wild isolated population without any particular monitoring must contain several hundred individuals to have a long term survival.
But there are cases of captive domestic animal populations successfully rescued, with a strict monitoring plan, with only 44 animals left. Even such a number is too large for a usual breeder. That's why it can only be done as a collaborative net between hobbyists.
A small group per hobbyist is better than a large "population". All the adults should have the same odds to contribute to the next generation. A sex-ratio of 1:1 is an ideal value.

A group of at least 3 (but ideally more) could manage that. Some very territorial species like those in the genus Paramesotriton or Pachytriton can hardly be housed in large numbers by any hobbyists and a collaboration among hobbyists is the only solution.

Of course, such collaborations for captive breeding must be made up as soon as animals are available.

wrage · Dec 9, 2014

i know i had my name down on a waiting list for some shanjing from someone who had had success with them previously...not sure if its because he's had no more success or because i'm not particularly active on the forums but not heard anything since and its probably been 2 years now.

manderkeeper · Dec 9, 2014

I would love to see greater participation in captive populations. The benefits would be numerous 1) People would get a real feel for being a part of a community and helping to keep a legacy going. 2) It would be far more interesting to keep a line that you can trace back many generations and know the history of including where it originally came from and so on. 3) We'd have better linage and genetic information and could avoid severe inbreeding or inappropriate outcrossing 4) It would encourage people to get involved and see value in breeding rarer species if people received more creds for working with then as opposed to the current situation where most people want to work with something easy to product and sell. I am not against the commercial production of a small handful of species, I just wish more specialists could be created and more like minded people would come into the hobby and more importantly stay at the hobbyist level breeding specialty species for several decades.

mr cyclone · Dec 10, 2014

I'm hopeing that CB Tylototriton is still available in the UK. Two breeders I know of in the UK don't have their animals anymore,I believe a Zoo bred a number of shanjing last year but the animals didn't make it into the Hobby,Some are in zoo collections

Stupot1610 · Dec 10, 2014

Dartfrog has some long term captive Tylototriton Yangi for sale: Amphibian Pricelist

Though, obviously not captive bred they are adults but it would appear that they haven't been bred from in the last couple of years because I check their price list regularly and they do not often have any Tylototriton species available.

Stuart

manderkeeper · Jan 25, 2015

I hope more resurface, they are cool animals and I wouldn't mind having some for myself!

mr cyclone · May 16, 2015

Tylototriton yangi 1.2 in the water area. Excitement and frustration

Davo · May 17, 2015

Fingers crossed for you mate. :happy:

Niels D · May 17, 2015

Can't get those darn yangi's to breed here, but I'm patient.

Another problem is that a lot of people, including me, don't focus on only a couple of species but on a lot. This results in people having only one breeding group of each specie and if something goes wrong they have none. A lot of species have their own unofficial "ambassador", meaning that there's someone who has a lot of them and breeds them constantly, but if this (wo)man stops keeping them, there's no stable population left within the hobby. It would be nice if each specie would have three or more "ambassadors", but that's hard to realise.

We need more Englishmen to come to Gersfeld this year. Enough CB Tylototriton to make it worth while if you ask me. If not, then there's always enough German beer to compensate the losses!

mr cyclone · May 17, 2015

I agree 100%
As for the yangi I have read that the area they originate from receives 50% of its annual rainfall in 1-2 months ( breeding season) hopping that rain here with the drop in pressure will also induce them. I've constructed a rain chamber so time will tell

Chinadog · May 17, 2015

Niels D said:
Can't get those darn yangi's to breed here, but I'm patient.

Another problem is that a lot of people, including me, don't focus on only a couple of species but on a lot. This results in people having only one breeding group of each specie and if something goes wrong they have none. A lot of species have their own unofficial "ambassador", meaning that there's someone who has a lot of them and breeds them constantly, but if this (wo)man stops keeping them, there's no stable population left within the hobby. It would be nice if each specie would have three or more "ambassadors", but that's hard to realise.

Yes, you're spot on. As I said earlier in this thread, breeding one species once, then moving on to another does little to help create a sustainable captive population. The way things are at the moment I think even seemingly common species in the hobby would dry up pretty quickly if the imports were banned.
When I was a kid countless Cynops pyrrhogaster were sold in almost all petstores and garden centres, but after the exports from Japan were stopped they suddenly became almost impossible to find. I can imagine the same thing happening if the regular Chinese imports of Tylos, Paramesotriton, pachytriton etc were stopped, especially Pachytritom as nobody has ever managed to successfully raise the larvae to maturity as far as I can tell.
Our hobby isn't huge, so it wouldn't be impossible to pull together in a coherent way to keep the variety, otherwise we might just be left with Axolotls or P. waltls to choose from.

manderkeeper · May 17, 2015

Chinadog,

How can we get people to participate? I know the stud book idea was tried a time or two but fell of the map. We need regular communication to get people excited and make them feel a part of something. I think this is a really good idea to do and link us all together in UK, Europe, USA, etc. I am pretty sure some sort of salamander import ban will happen in the USA in the near future, but likely we can still export back to you guys without any issues.

mr cyclone · May 18, 2015

I started this thread originally to see if there was anyone in the UK still breeding Tylototriton .
I am guilty of flooding the UK with verrucosus or now (Shanoram ) which are still not bred in great numbers, Or could be that the hobby itself is in decline in the UK.
I did have an attempt at several Tylototriton species (all CB ) with little success. I have zero intention of buying anymore WC animals because of my experience with them . And I hope to rectify the mistake this time. If they do breed this will be great I have space and experience with other newts to raise large robust offspring I will happily pass on to hobbyists who would like to help raise a strong CB population free of charge
Fingers crossed

Would also like to say thank you to Liam Reid who I am fortunate to have met , He helped with a sick female I had which has made a full recovery .
Gentleman of a bloke

jAfFa CaKe · May 18, 2015

I really think we should take action with this. I'd be happy to help in a progam like this.

Chinadog · May 18, 2015

Me too. I don't keep many species but they produce a steady supply of babies and I will be keeping them long term if that's any help. A list of members and the species they breed would be a start? It needs better organisation skills than I have to make a go of it, though.

Captive Breeding of Tylototriton in the U.K

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