T. marmoratus/pygmaeus eggs laid!

[terry]

Hello folks,

Well now, my birthday present gave me it's own birthday present!

I did not observe the actual pairing itself but this morning I observed one of the females sniffing some leaves and I decided to follow her movements with my camera. Lo and behold, she began laying eggs!

Here she is:

Close up of one of her eggs:

Sorry for the poor quality of the pictures. The Marbled newts are currently kept in a large plastic aquarium and I did not want to move her out while she was laying. I guess the eggs will have to be removed to a separate tank to see if they develop. Wish me luck!

Best regards,
Terry

p.s. I STILL do not know if they are marmoratus or pygmaeus.

 

[william]

congratulations! good luck with the eggs!

 

[jennifer]

Good going!

 

[pin-pin]

Congratulations!

 

[TJ]

Great!

Have you raised marbled larvae before? Well, in any case don't do as I did initially, which was changing their water frequently. When an experienced hobbyist advised me that that was why they were dying, I stopped, and so did the deaths! I managed to get around 40 morphs this season anyway. Wouldn't have known what to do with much more!

 

[terry]

Hello again Tim.. and again and again!

I did not change any water at all but i do add a little of filtered rain water when the water level drops a little. The eggs are currently being kept in a shallow plastic shoe box with no aerator.

I read a lot of references and threads prior to starting my breeding attempt. The good news is, my newts may turn out to be pygmaeus after all. If that is a case...( evil chuckle)

Terry

 

[terry]

Well, after much cleaning and sorting out of unfertile eggs, there seems to be some progress and I remain hopeful. Here is a view of what is going on.

 

[terry]

A small update here.
The larvae have developed to much! and this morning larvae have began hatching!

I'm sorry for the poor quality photos but I could not get the camera to focus on the little larvae. Anyway here it is:

Here is another shot of the same larva.

I will take more better photos when I have more light to work with. So there you have it. The first marbled newt larva!

 

[TJ]

Good going, Terry

It seems to have been only a few months since mine bred for me, but 4 of the 8 adults are now back in the water -- 2 plump females and 2 males that are starting to develop crests again.

Arghh...I still have some 40 juvies to feed from last time!

 

[terry]

Hey Tim!
Now that is a very lovely male with developing crest! Is he a male from your first group or the second generation?

According to some, the hard work is yet to come and as soon as the larvae grow, they will be needing their food. And that will be a lot of feeding! I only hope I do not collapse from the effort

 

[terry]

A brief update. Got word from Rubén that these are very small Triturus marmoratus. Ah well there goes my hidden desire to study and breed pygmies. No matter! They turned out to be magnificent animals after all. (Note, their identification is still a work in progress)
Here are some more shots of the larvae:

Here is a close up of one of the larvae. Note the odd cleft at the egg sac area.

 

[TJ]

Hiya Terry.

Well, the male's crest in that pic is a bit flopped over toward the lens and its tail is not fully in view, but the other pictures were simply too blurry to show

The male is from my 1st group. The 2nd generation ones are only months old, not years, though some of them are perhaps big enough now to be considered subadults rather than juveniles. Certainly far from being morphs.

Yeah, better keep that food coming! I find it best to have two batches of baby brine shrimp hatchlings or eggs going at once so there's always something available to feed the babes until they're ready to feed on tubifex worms (or each other!).

I still don't know whether mine are T. marmoratus or pygmies...and still really don't care all that much, for now at least until I start seeking to enlarge the gene pool.

Anyway, nice larvae photos!

 

[terry]

Again another update!
Hello Tim! After much exchanges opf photographic material and comparisons and debate about morphological differences...
These are tentatively "Triturus pygmaeus" similar to type specimens from the southern peninsula Iberica.( Though purely under speculation, this comes the closest). Rubén suggests it resembles animals from Southern Spain or Southern Portugal

 

[TJ]

Hehe...well they're all "marbleds" to me

As far as differences go, I wouldn't even know where to begin looking as smaller ones that may seem at first glance to be pygmies could simply be young T. marmoratus. Mine have bred for me despite being pretty small compared to my past marms...though that could mean they're pygmies

I guess I'd be interested in knowing the minimal size at breeding (cresting for males and egg-laying for females, for example) for the two species.

Mine are said to be captive-bred animals that were shipped to Japan as babies from the Czech Republic. I got them as babies, but that's all I can vouch for. They weren't sold by their scientific name, just as marbled newts ("madara imori" in Japanese).

 

[terry]

Hello Tim,
Well, they could have been Chibi-madara-imori since they are small! by name then if not scientific! I'm betting all my tamago that they are "chibi"...

Mine were sold to me as marbled newts as well with no specific name but only the age of a colony and a rough origin of location. it has been a needle in a haystack ever since and i have lots of thread for this needle!

 

[mark]

Well Terry, you sure like changing your mind about these newts, one minute marmoratus the next pygmaeus. To my relatively untrained eye, but based on dorsal coloration, belly colour /spots and overall length, I would say they are marmoratus. Soon you will have a male crest to compare with marmoratus – pygmaeus do not develop the high crest of T. marmoratus and it tapers differently.

I think pygmaeus is being bred readily in Europe, at least in the UK it is not hard to obtain them as juveniles. Maybe you should buy some to satisfy your desire to study them.

 

[terry]

Hello Mark.
Thanks for the feedback and sorry if it sounded like I was changing my mind

being undecided is one of my demons. Suffice to say, I have indeed looked at crests of marmoratus and indeed the crest of marmoratus is higher but the individual photographed (this picture does not do the animal justice)is an adult and has not grown a crest any higher than what was depicted in the above photo. Furthermore I do posses an actual marmoratus male for comparison! That one produced a crest different to the one in question.

Then again to obtain a "true" colony of pygmaeus is, once again the ultimate solution. At least I would know for certain what they are. As for my mystery marbled newts? They still remain a mystery and nevertheless they have bred. My chances of sourcing out CB pygmaeus in the Netherlands are few. Some people say that it is hardly being bred here in NL but who can say.

 

[mark]

I think, but not 100% certain, that you should look towards Germany for cb pygmaeus. I suspect thats where the UK ones are from. Easy posting distance from the Netherlands

Don't you already have a 12cm individual in that group? Too large for a 2 year old pygmaeus perhaps?

 

[terry]

the 12 CM individual is the true Triturus marmoratus. This one I believe is a juvenile male. 100% sure. Colouration, size and crest says it all

Please refer to http://www.caudata.org/forum/cgi-bin/show.cgi?tpc=985&post=64921#POST64921

This one is the lone male marmoratus. This is not the same animal as the one in the small pet carrier tank above in this thread. That one is 8.5 cm long. At the time of posting it's first picture, it was 2 years and 10 months. it is now 3 years of age. Thus 3 years and being 8.5 cm? Curious?

As for posting distance between germany and NL? not too far. but then I will have to source someone out first before I can think of receiving animals via mail!

(Message edited by terryschild on November 10, 2005)

 

[rubén]

I don't know the abundance of T. pygmaeus as C.B. newt in Europe but, as far as I know, some of them was sold as T. pygmaeus from Lisbon, very close to those ones, regarding morphology and colour pattern.

Dwarf populations of marmoratus, this could be very interesting but, where? 8'5 cm in a 3 years old marbled newt ( without hibernation ), cream belly, low crest... I wouldn't be surely about the "purity" of these marmoratus.