Speleomantes of Sardinia

[Jay Redbond]

Hello All,

I went to Sardinia last weekend for three days with a friend and I thought I would share some of my pictures with you. The trip was amazing and I have always wanted to go and find these guys in the wild and photograph them. We had two species that we wanted to find Speleomantes flavus and Speleomantes sarrabusensis and we found them both so a successful trip.

I have always wanted to study theses guys in captivity and develop a breeding program as not much is known about them. Seeing them in the wild makes me even more determined to work with this endemic species in the future.

Here are some pictures.:happy:

The first three are Speleomantes flavus the next five are Speleomantes sarrabusensis.

 

[froggy]

Fantastic pics! I'm glad you and Julian found them in the end. Do you have any habitat pics?

C

 

[Jay Redbond]

Fantastic pics! I'm glad you and Julian found them in the end. Do you have any habitat pics?

C

Cheers

Julien has got the best photos so I am sure he will show you if you ask him. My camera is not the best for cave pictures so they are not good pictures.

Kind Regards

 

[Azhael]

:O
I hate you...i hate you so much...

Smashing pictures! Thank you so much for sharing. That picture with the four sarrabusensis is just brilliant..i´m sure you laughed maniacally at the sight of so much awesomness.

Convince your friend to share his pictures with us!

 

[Jay Redbond]

:O
I hate you...i hate you so much...

Smashing pictures! Thank you so much for sharing. That picture with the four sarrabusensis is just brilliant..i´m sure you laughed maniacally at the sight of so much awesomness.

Convince your friend to share his pictures with us!

Yeah it was an amazing sight.

 

[sergé]

Sadly there is no one as far as I know with legal papers for Sardinian species of Speleomantes. As they are strictly protected by the Habitats Directive I don't think any of them will come into private hands easily. However before this legislation became in force Thomas Mutz dsecribed his breeding expericence with s. imperialis:

Mutz, T., (1989). ‘Haltung und Zucht des Sardischen Höhlensalamanders Hydromantes imperialis (Stefani, 1969) und einige Beobachtungen zur Ökologie der europäischen Höhlensalamander.’ Salamandra, 34: 167-180.

Of course the story of "live bearing" sarrabusensis would be worhtwhile to check in captivity, as I (and most others) don't believe any of it.

 

[Jay Redbond]

Sadly there is no one as far as I know with legal papers for Sardinian species of Speleomantes. As they are strictly protected by the Habitats Directive I don't think any of them will come into private hands easily. However before this legislation became in force Thomas Mutz dsecribed his breeding expericence with s. imperialis:

Mutz, T., (1989). ‘Haltung und Zucht des Sardischen Höhlensalamanders Hydromantes imperialis (Stefani, 1969) und einige Beobachtungen zur Ökologie der europäischen Höhlensalamander.’ Salamandra, 34: 167-180.

Of course the story of "live bearing" sarrabusensis would be worhtwhile to check in captivity, as I (and most others) don't believe any of it.

Cheers Serge,
I was thinking more from a institutional point of view. You would of thought that at least a few institutes should keep them to safe guard populations in wild and study there behaviour.

Do you know if there is anyone studying them in the wild?

Kind regards

 

[sergé]

The mainland populatiosn are very well studied, the Sardinian populations not. But to be honest, I don't think they are very endangered in the wild on Sardinia. Some populations of species (imperialis, geni, flavus) actually live inside human settlements. However, some species have very small distributions or populations can be isolated. Genetic diversity is high so all that can be preserved should be preserved. And EU law demands it as well.