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Cause of death?

cherry blossom

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I had a Chinese fire belly newt whom I tried to save from emaciation. He was unfed and living in filthy conditions for months, poor little guy :(. He was extremely skinny and refused to swim, he sat on top of a rock in his new cage all the time. When he first started getting fed again he actually did pretty good. He accepted blood worms and black worms, and he even became more active and started to swim. However, he remained skinny looking. Just recently though, he started to act very strange. I found him in his enclosure one morning laying belly up in the water. I thought he was dead, so I started to remove him from the tank. Then, he started squirming. I set him down on the rock in his tank. Once he was set down he started to toss his head in the air and flail his legs around, causing him to fall over into the water once again. He did that for about a day, and got weaker and weaker until he died. Does anyone know why he was acting so strangely? Why did he die? Was it effects of emaciation, or something else?
 
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Otterwoman

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It's hard to say what he was going through, maybe even seizures of some kind? But it's not easy for a salamander to survive after those conditions and stress.
 
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