T. kweichowensis secreting toxins?

[peter5930]

One of my kweichowensis was in the water earlier today, and when I got close to the tank, it looked at me and reared up on it's hind legs with it's front legs against the glass at the front of the tank. Once it had gone back down on all fours, I noticed patches of blue-grey on the top of it's head along the brow ridges and on the knobs along it's spine. At first I was worried that it was an infection, but Tylototriton guy thought it was defensive toxins being expressed onto the skin. It stared at me for several hours after that, while I alternated between working at the computer and taking videos of it.

I'm not very good at sexing animals, but I introduced what might be a gravid female to the tank a few days ago, so the other four newts in there might be getting a bit hormonal, and this might explain the threat display and toxin secretion. I've seen similar behaviour with my alpestris and dobrogicus when they're in season; the males become very bold and want to check out and show off to or intimidate everything that comes along.

Tylototriton kweichowensis secreting toxins? Part 1 - YouTube

Tylototriton kweichowensis secreting toxins? Part 2 - YouTube

This is the possibly-gravid, possibly-female that I introduced to the tank a few days ago. I got it from Obrowell, so he's getting first dibs on any offspring.

big fat Tylototriton kweichowensis - YouTube

 

[peter5930]

I also made some screencaps of the videos I took and uploaded them here:

http://www.caudata.org/forum/member...totriton-kweichowensis-expressing-toxins.html

 

[eljorgo]

Your animals are all very very skinny. But I dont think the weird patches are a direct consequence of that. I've had a Paramesotriton fuzhongensis like that before, I dont know the causes but as far as I was able to see it was something completely harmless and the animals lived long, fed and behaved just normal all the time they spent with me. Then I had them sent to another man and as far as I know after 2 years they are still ok and alive

But please start feeding those newts for real. They all look like skin and bone.
Heres one of my previous group so you get to know how they should look like:

 

[peter5930]

4 of them arrived 2 and a half weeks ago, and 1 of them arrived just a few days ago, so there hasn't been much time for my own husbandry practices to influence their weight. Their tank is stocked with worms that they can hunt as they please, and I watched them have a good worm massacre, so they're feeding fine.

This is how they looked when I first got them:

Red-tailed knobby newts (Tylototriton kweichowensis) in new tank - YouTube

big fat Tylototriton kweichowensis - YouTube

 

[Niels D]

Try some waxies. Did wonders when my T.cf.kweichowensis male recovered from an infection. They're a bit skinny, but it's nothing a good diet won't fix.

 

[peter5930]

This is my usual approach to getting newts to put on weight:

kweichowensis eating a lobworm - YouTube