Thanks to authors of new Caudata Culture articles!

[jennifer]

I wish to thank the three most recent authors of significant new material on Caudata Culture. Pin-Pin Wei wrote a caresheet for Taricha torosa, Dick Bartlett wrote an article on photography, and Ralf Reinartz wrote a caresheet for Cynops ensicauda. The new material is linked from the home page of the site:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/

A big thank you to all three of you!!!

I am currently seeking a volunteer to revise and expand the "Setups" article. And I need someone with expertise with Pachytriton to co-author a caresheet. Any takers? Any other suggestions for things to write?

 

[alan]

Fantastic! A big thank you to all those involved.

One request: the Taricha torosa article does not contain any max/min/optimal temperature information, which is important. Any chance of including the same sort of climate info as in the Cynops ensicauda article?

 

[nate]

The problem there is that torosa has an enormous temperature range compared to ensicauda. They literally live in hot, semi-arid conditions in southern California, mild coastal forest conditions in northern California, and frigid conditions in the high Sierras. The data set would be enormous.

A very important point to consider is the often radical difference between air temperatures and the microhabitat temperatures that the species actually live in. In many cases, air temps have little to no practical application because the salamanders dont expose themseleves to those temps. They are in far cooler (or warmer, depending on season) leaf litter, burrows, or aquatic habitats.

 

[alan]

Thanks Nate. How about including that information then? Also, some practical advice from experienced breeders as to what temperatures have worked for them?

 

[john]

I would like to congratulate the authors too. Ralf, I've been having sleepless nights for a month now waiting for the Cynops ensicauda article and I'm very satisfied with the result

. It cleared up a few questions I had.

Dick, your photography article is fantastic. I hope my article in the magazine is even half as good.

 

[r]

Many thanx for your comments John. They're much appreciated. Kind regards/Dick

 

[jennifer]

We have a new article on CC about Rhyacotriton salamanders in the U.S. Pacific Northwest:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/Rhyacotriton.shtml

Thanks to Henk Wallays!