Eyeless vulgaris

[Jake]

I was looking at a tub of Lissotriton vulgaris earlier and found 2 eyeless hatchlings. There aren't many, I've found a couple others in the past. Sorry for the poor photo quality. The one on the left is a larva that has eyes, just to show the difference.

 

[Azhael]

Very interesting. Keep us posted!
Wonder if they´ll develop like normal larvae or if whatever caused the abnormality will condemn them to an early death.

 

[catfish dude]

Hey,

Have newts larvae taste tubes scattered all around the body like for example catfishes? Or do they have them only in mouths? Also the same question goes for mature specimens. If they have a lot of taste tubes then they will be perfectly fine without eyes. If not then they will die sooner or later imho. I'm not sure how smell sense works in caudates however.

Another thing is that they possibly will be able to sharpen other senses like taste and smell to recompense lack in vision.

Regards.

 

[Greatwtehunter]

Hey Jake I have one of these as well. Mines about 2 or 3 weeks old and still going strong.

 

[fishkeeper]

I raised some waltl that looked similar to start.

They now have either one or two undeveloped eyes that are maybe half the size of normal ones. I also have a very light colored(but not leucistic) larvae with degenerate eyes that due to the lightness of the body you can see the gold part quite well.

 

[fishkeeper]

Here's one of ems baby photo
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v162/nonamethefish/?action=view&current=weird.jpg

 

[SnakeDancer]

Hope most of them develop normally. Are you breeding these? Vulgaris is one of the species I've been on the lookout for....