Mysterious Newt found in large seep near Rudolstadt, Germany!

Heinz68 · Jun 24, 2008

Dear Caudata Forum,

I live in Rudolstadt, Thuringia Germany and are mostly interessted in Insects.
Anyway, Im interessted in amphibians, too and googled to determinate a newt we found on an excursion with local enviroment carers (BUND) in a large seep ca. 11 km south of Rudolstadt in May 15. I already know the local newts, as I have the "Berninghausen" and Im sure, it wasent a member of this species, like the crested newt, who occurs mostly in dark shadowed forest swamps and seeps!
And Im sure it wasn`t a Firesalamander, too!
Maybe one of you can help me to determinate ( I have no pic, as we let him free immediatley cause our laws):
This newt was ca 18-20 cm long and brownish- greyish with a big head and relativley big eyes and a big moth with some kind of lipps. As I have googled, he looked mostly simmilar to this photo,
I have found on the web!

regards
Heinz

Nathan050793 · Jun 24, 2008

This is what your picture is of, Ranodon sibricus or the Semirechensk Salamander. I'm not sure if it is found in Germany though. here is a link to it's page. http://www.caudata.org/cc/species/Ranodon/R_sibiricus.shtml

Kaysie · Jun 24, 2008

This species is found in China.

Jennewt · Jun 24, 2008

I am thinking of two possibilities. One, maybe it was an unusually large crested newt. I have seen these kinds of "lips" on them. Two, maybe a released Pleurodeles. These are so common in captivity that it's possible there could be a released one living. Was the skin smooth or rough?

tmarmoratus · Jun 25, 2008

Yeah, unfortunately it's going to be impossible to identify the species given the lack of crucial detail and picture of actual caudate. Jen has given some good suspects, though I wouldn't be surprised in the least bit if either were not it.

Heinz68 · Jun 25, 2008

Dear Community,

As I saw, there is no chance for determinating this newt without a pic, so we went to the habit todays morning. Unfortunatley, less newt remained in water and all this common crested newts, I think. But under a stone in the near of the water Line we found one of this unusual brownish ones.
Even if this one was not at large as the newt we found in may at this place, he looks relativley similar. Sorry for bad qualitiy of the photo, but he was very fast and we had to free him immeadiatley!
The skin wasent rough, it was smooth, but Im already sure, it wasent one of this usual crested newts and no fire salamander at all!
regards
Heinz

Nathan050793 · Jun 25, 2008

Could it possibly be a female of some type of Ommatotriton? Maybe phryticus?

Azhael · Jun 25, 2008

That does look like Ommatotriton. I´d say it´s a female too even though it kind of has a tiny crest. Also, this species matches the description since males can get quite large, definitely bigger than Triturus. The similarities with Ranodon though are very...imaginative.
What´s people thinking??? who releases Ommatotriton in Germany?? That could be an stablised population...

Nathan050793 · Jun 25, 2008

I have no idea how an Ommatotriton species would be in Germany, however it's either that or like Jen said "an unusually large crested newt." I mean look, it's definitely not Pleurodeles.

Ingo · Jun 25, 2008

AW: Mysterious Newt found in large seep near Rudolstadt, Germany!

Hi,

take a look here, it looks very similar to a female O. ophryticus.
http://images.google.de/imgres?imgu...es?q=Ommatotriton+ophryticus&gbv=2&hl=de&sa=G

Greetings Ingo V.

Heinz68 · Jun 25, 2008

Hello at all,

Well that should be the right determination for the "mysterious" newts at all! Thank u very much!

caleb · Jun 26, 2008

Looks like a big female smooth newt (Lissotriton (=Triturus) vulgaris) to me. Body length is about the same length as the little finger of the person in the photo- well within the range of smooth newt size. Female smooths do occasionally have a dark and light stripe along the side- for example, look at these photos from Henk Wallays:

http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?query_src=aw_lists_genera_&enlarge=1111+1111+1111+3168
http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?query_src=aw_lists_genera_&enlarge=1111+1111+1111+2525

A big female smooth is much more likely than an out-of-place Ommatotriton...

franceschino · Jun 26, 2008

I agree with Caleb: it was probably a female L. vulgaris which are very similar in appearence to O. ophryticus females. Is L. helveticus also present in the area? Alternatively it could have been a female M. alpestris. I doubt it was an O. ophryticus cos they come from Turkey; it would be very unlikely for a breeder of this species to release them in the wild and it would be even more unlikely for them to survive and to be spotted by someone passing by.
ciao
Francesco

Nathan050793 · Jun 26, 2008

After seeing those pictures, I could believe it is L.vulgaris, that would make more sense. That would go with the "large crested newt" theory. It doesn't look like M.alpestris to me though.

Azhael · Jul 14, 2008

The problem with the L.vulgaris possibility is that males can never....ever....get to be 18cm long. So it´s either a missidentification of a crested newt or it´s actually a released Ommatotriton. It would be very useful if you could go back there and take pics of a male.

The animal from the picture could perfectly be a female vulgaris. I hadn´t noticed the size of the animal.
Ommatotriton females are way smaller than males though, and they could perfectly be the size of a vulgaris female...and being so similar it´s really difficult to distinguish them. The key would be the males.

petro · Jul 14, 2008

The photograph is showing a t.vulgaris(at least in my opinion)in my garden there are living a lot of them.
Two years ago (or so) I found a female there from the size of 16 cm,and years ago also from that size neare my gardenhouse.
Petro.

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