Cynops Orientalis Eggs - Sudden appearance

[AmbhiMan]

Hi,

My C. Orientalis female layed 5 eggs on the digital thermometer on 27.10.2010.

The female is actually 8 cms long ( largest in my 4 newts ) and hence did not expect her to lay eggs so early as I thought the females have to reach 10 cms to start laying eggs.

Am enclosing few photos of the eggs. Would like to know if they seem to be developing. Checked on the site but could not locate any photos of developing eggs.

Do let me know if these seems to be healthy and developing. The third photo is taken on 29.10.2010.

Regards,

 

[Azhael]

Are you absolutely sure they are Hypselotriton (Cynops) orientalis? I´m just asking because this species lays eggs individually on submerged vegetation. I wouldn´t expect them to lay on plastic thermometer and re-use the same spot. I suposse it´s not impossible if there are no suitable laying places, but it´s certainly very weird.

You should offer adequate laying substrates like live/fake plants or plastic strips if you prefer.
The eggs look like they are developing, by the way, so they should be ok.

Just to remove the doubt, females don´t need to grow to 10cms before they are able to reproduce. In fact 10cm long females are rare, they don´t usually grow that large. Generally speaking, i would expect any female larger than 6cm to be able to reproduce.

 

[AmbhiMan]

Hi Azhael,

Thanks for your reply. I think the newts are Cynops Orientalis - I have no other newts. Am attached a few photos of the newts so that you can confirm them for me.

About the choice of place for egg laying, there was no other option for her in the tank hence probably she used the thermometer.

Am not sure if I can handle more eggs hence will not put the plants as suggested by you, keeping the temp cool enough here is a challenge. The room temperature is between 30-32 C.

Will concentrate on trying to hatch the present lot.

Regards,

 

[evut]

Hi, I am no expert but I think you should give the female something to lay the eggs onto. She will need to get rid of them. You can just leave them in the tank if you don't want to take them out and raise the babies.Just let nature take its course (parents might eat the eggs or larvae, there might not be enough food in the tank...you probably won't end up with dozens of newts this way). If you want to have some little newts for sure you should definitely take out more than just 4 eggs anyway. Making brine shrimp or something similar for 4 larvae would be a bit strange. Don't forget that a lot of larvae will not develop well and will die later.
Have a look at the Reproducton & Rearing articles here:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/articles.shtml

 

[Azhael]

They definitely are Hypselotriton (Cynops) orientalis. No doubt.
It´s very weird that she chose that place to lay.

Even if you don´t wish to raise more offspring, i would allow the female to lay her eggs. Technically they can reabsorb them, but it would be best to let her lay them. As Eva says, they may eat them, some individuals are big egg-eaters.
If you leave the larvae with the parents, it´s likely that only a handful would make it metamorphosis unless the conditions are particularly excellent and food is everywhere.

I´m sure you know this, but i would make a serious effort in trying to lower those temps. If the water temperature gets close to that, it can be lethal to your newts.

 

[Jennewt]

Looking closely at the 3rd photo, I'm not so sure that they are developing. To me, they look like some of the duds I've seen.

 

[gloriousspandex]

I agree with Jennewt, those definitely look like duds in the third photo. My newt was about 7 cm when she had her first batch of eggs, and now she's about 9.5 cm. She's a big girl. : P

 

[Azhael]

I´m not that sure, there has obviously been celular division, and i think one looks like a basically normal embryo. There are two that look like something went wrong in the process, but i guess only time will tell.

 

[AmbhiMan]

Guys,

Finally some eggs have hatched !! :happy:. Some photos that I clicked, the larvae are about 2 weeks old.

I have been feeding them live daphnia and also the smallest of tubifex worms that I can separate from the large ones. I have not seen them eat though their size is slowly increasing.

Regards

 

[evut]

Congratulations and good luck raising them!

 

[AmbhiMan]

Some more photos, the larvae are now a little more than one month old and about 2.5 cms long in length. They are eating small tubifex worms and little bloodworms.

 

[SwissAxie]

Hey,

Congratulations.
I've just got one question : I can't see any plants on the pics of your adults. I hope they have some. Normally, the cynops orientalis female lays each egg on a leaf and pulls the leaf around it. My female lays like 60 eggs within a few days... but each and everyone is wrapped up in a leaf not like yours left behind on some surface.

Take good care of the little guys. You will have to provide them with a possibility to get out of the water when they go into metamorphosis. Of you don't they will drown. They go terrestrial for quite a few weeks/months before they go back into the water (if at all... some don't, really).

Good luck and have fun and keep posting piccies

Barbara

 

[Jennewt]

Congratulations, AmbhiMan! Nice work, they look very healthy.

 

[Azhael]

Looking good! Best of lucks with raising them through metamorphosis, it can be a bit tricky but i hope you have no problems!

 

[AmbhiMan]

SwissAxie, Jennewt, Azhael,

Thanks for your kind remarks.

Barbara,

You are correct I do not have any real plants in the adults tank.

Actually in India, newts are not very commonly sold in the petshops and very rarely you get to see them in the shops. I was on lookout for these for several years now and finally got 4 of these in a local petshop. When I got these newts they were very frail and weak to look at and hence I preferred to keep them in a bare bottomed tank so as to monitor them better and nurse them back to health.

I was not aware of the Chinese species till I brought them home under the impression that they were the japanese species. This site helped me clear the doubts and confirm the species to be cynops orientalis.

I did not expect them to lay eggs so soon and so was caught unaware, the first time the eggs appeared on the digital thermometer. These did not hatch and hence I put a small artificial plastic plant created out of plastic strips. They soon layed on this plant and I have still some eggs developing on it.

I do intend to build a larger tank 48 x 21 x 21 inches wherein I will have some land area with live plants and real aquatic plants in the water part.

Also before I build the large tank, I have a 32 x 16 x 16 tank which I will intend to setup before to check the cooling and water currents created by the water circulation.

Will put of the pictures of the process soon.

Look forward to your comments and advice.

Thanks & Regards,

 

[AmbhiMan]

The first morph of the the lot spotted today. Attaching a few photos.

The first egg had hatched on 29th Nov 2010 two months back so it took 2 months for the metamorphosis.

I have shifted the little fellow to a small container kept tilted along the side with max water depth of 1.5 cms.

When do the undersides start turning red ?

 

[froggy]

The morph looks great, well done rearing them through. The underside will not turn red unless there are (plentiful) carotenoids in the diet. The biggest effect is had on larvae (with Daphnia, Artemia and other crustaceans being particularly good sources), but if you feed the juveniles with supplemented food stuffs it will help to redden the belly. Gut-loading crickets on raw carrots works well, but commercial supplements are also very good for both gut-loading and dusting on food items. Rodrigo (Azhael) knows quite a lot about this, and there is also information at Caleb Leeke's site, here: Carotenoids and amphibian colouration

Best of luck with the morphs

C

 

[anothernewtfan]

Congratulations AmbhiMan. Just judging by the size of these young newts I can tell you have been feeding them regularly.

 

[AmbhiMan]

Froggy , anothernewtfan,

Thanks for your kind comments.

The length of this fellow is around 4 cms. I have others who are close to morphing and around the same size or so.

Will post more photos as they develop.

 

[AmbhiMan]

Posting more photos of juveniles newts.