Courtship behaviour in juvenile Dobros.

[Azhael]

Ok...so i was about to feed the rabid dobros the other day and noticed one doing something weird. I looked closer and saw that it had the "cat" position, perpendicular to another one. It was making fast movements of the tail against the other one´s head (not exactly tail-fanning) and it moved the body too. I´ve seen it happen twice. Has anybody else noticed this behaviour in juveniles??? They are just 8 cm long...too young to even show any sexual dimorphism. Is it a sign of territorialism, or maybe a very early sign of a young male??? That would be great hehe, since the day i got them i had a weird feeling that one was going to be male...it would be nice to be right. Btw...it´s the one that had a yellow stripe that´s behaving like this.

 

[ravenous]

:lol: Dude, you watch your newts waaaaaaay too much. If I posted about all the weird stuff mine did.... well.

 

[david_d]

I also noticed behaviour like this with young T.kareliniis and t. carnifex. I think it is mating behaviour which you can see often in this genus aniyway there is no mating season, especially when they are well feed and after cold water changes.
Greets David!

 

[Azhael]

If i knew about all the weird stuff they do and what it means then i wouldn´t use this forum...
Just trying to learn and avoid mistakes....
I´d rather be annoying than a terrible keeper...
And yes...i spend too much time watching them....specially cause i´m a newbie and i feel that watching them closely is the best way to know if everything goes well....

 

[coendeurloo]

Rodrigo, my T. dobrogicus were already sexually mature when they were 10 months, this is very common with T. dobrogicus, even though the eggs mostly won't be super quality.

 

[Azhael]

Thank you for the info Coen.
I´ve been observing them today and i´m pretty convinced it´s territorialism or an agression of some kind...it always ends with a quick bite and the two involved swimming away. I´ve seen two of them do it , and it was specially frequent after i fed them. With the excitement they get very agressive and they started running away from each other and doing the cat thing. I guess this is their normal behaviour for "get out of here this food is mine".
I´ll keep an eye for any sign of sexual maturing though, but still 8cm sounds way too young...i bet yours were bigger at 10 months hehe.

 

[Azhael]

Just thought i would post a couple pics since i managed to snap a couple of them.

 

[Mark]

That’s typical cat-buckle/tail flicking breeding behaviour associated with Triturus. I don’t think it’s aggression. They may be young but they learn about the birds and the bees fast. You sometimes find that excitable males can’t help indulging in a bit of breeding behaviour during feeding. There can’t be much room for thinking in those tiny brains and the section for “yay! FOOD!” is right next to “oooh, hot lady!” and it must get confusing. Typical males really… :tongue:

 

[Azhael]

i see..but i think it´s weird that i´ve seen all three of them do it. The one pictured is the one that does it the most, and for longer. But i trully doubt they all are males....specially since i was told there was a higher percentage of females and it was risky to buy just three cause i was most likely getting females. So if they are all males this is what i call the "odds". I think the one pictured is a young male ....the other two....time will tell.