Halloween is hitting me hard this year.

Yesterday, I found THIS in my I. alpestris tank: (pics 1 &2)

and today, I found THIS in my marmoratus tank (pics 3&4). Him, I'm naming "Spike."

Yesterday, I was questioning my sanity; today, I'm just giving in (to what, though?).

Spike looks awesome! Very cool stuff...

What the heck is a Taricha doing in M. alpestris tank? :O

Happy Halloween!!!! Did you solve the mystery yet?

Wow, those are two very interesting discoveries! Did a t. gran larvae sneak into you alpine tank? I wonder how that happened. Spike is a very interesting newt. Does he seem disabled at all?

I do have a colony of T. grans, which have never laid eggs. I'm not in the habit of putting things from one tank into the other. Perhaps the T. grans have been laying eggs, and eating them, and one of them sneezed instead of swallowing and blew it into the alpestris tank. That is my working theory. Anyone have a better one?

Spike seems as normal as the rest of my newts...he's certainly not skinny or anything. If anything, he has the advantage pushing the other newts away from the food.

Is that an extra limb on his left front leg?

The T. gran eggs must have stuck to a net or plant. Or got stuck on a siphon. Maybe it even came in on the plant. I really like the extra arm on the marm though. It's like putting your hand in an old jacket and finding 20 bucks you didn't know you had.

Travisdjtg said:

Is that an extra limb on his left front leg?

Click to expand...

or, part of one.

A deformity like that would normally sadden me, but to blazes with it, that newt looks wicked! xD

Yeah, if I were a warrior, I'd want something like that as an IMPLANT!...I think I read too much sci-fi/fantasy.
Or they're like misplaced antlers--not only stuck on the wrong body part, but even the wrong species for antlers!
I hope he makes it. I've had little success with this species in the past, but maybe this time it'll go better.

Spike is certainly interesting-looking. But I find the T. granulosa to be much more of an intriguing mystery. I assume that all of the newts in your T. gran colony are "present and accounted for", right? So this one must have been an offspring (from somewhere). Did you ever move any plants or ornaments into the alpestris tank? Have you received ANYTHING from Audrey (she is just crawling with granulosa eggs, and likely to contaminate any collection with them). Are the alpestris adults, or ones that you obtained as eggs/juvs?

Maybe it generated the extra limb for back scratching?

Jenn, this drove me absolutely insane for a full day until I decided I had to just give up trying to figure it out. Plus, the next day I found Spike and I just gave up trying to figure anything out. I do have a T. grans colony, 7 WC adults that live next to the alpestris tank. They have never laid (that I ever saw or knew of!!). I also have a colony of cb two-year olds, I've never even seen them amplex yet. (Separate tank). The alpestris tank is about three years old, I started with a pair that bred shortly after they arrived.
(see:
http://www.caudata.org/forum/f1173-...-gallery/39245-mytotally-unexpected-eggs.html
http://www.caudata.org/forum/f1173-...y/48012-my-totally-unexpected-eggs-hatch.html)
They bred the first year, not last year, and this year they (now much increased from the original three) bred again. So I found this grans in with the alpestris babies/adults. I was just looking through the vegetation, cleaning up detritus, and there he was! I am NOT in the habit of putting things from one tank to the other without washing it, and I haven't even added anything new to the alpestris tank recently that I can even think of. It's really stumping me. My theory above in post 6 is really my best theory. My other best theory is, that when Michael visited me in September, he pranked me with this when I wasn't looking. But he denies it. I almost wish he had, because then I'd have an explanation. I've never gotten anything directly from Audrey, though I suspect that my colony of two-year olds hatched in her domain. Any theories you have, please pass them along!
And yes, all my T. grans are accounted for!

Could one of the 2-year-olds have gotten transferred over? Or are they all present and accounted for too? The one you found looks about 1 or 2 years old.

Alas, I have my own Halloween mystery now. I just found a mummified juvenile newt on the floor in the basement, probably C. cyanurus. I have kept them locked down like Alcatraz at all times, so I really don't know how it got out. Grumble.

No, they're all accounted for too. Maybe you can't tell the size well from the picture, but that baby hatched this year and probably only morphed a couple weeks ago. I did raise some from eggs one year, and it's the same size as my new morphs were.

Perhaps the Taricha is in fact an L. Alpestris in halloween disguise? That'd be something.
The picture of Spike is interesting, albeit totally bizarre

Here's his picture, in the tank with the two-year olds. He fit right in!
I call him "Intrepid" because that's what he is.