Unknown illness. I need help!

[yago]

Unknown illness. I need help
I just returned from my holidays and all my newts seem ok but not the offspings ’03 of t.marmoratus, t.vitattus and t.boscai!!! I found massive deaths of juveniles, all of them with transparent bellies. The ones that are still alive u can see through their bellies! They have inflated transparent bellies, they also seem to have no coordination while moving.
I have no experience on that illness, bacteria…?
Any help? What is it?
Thank you

 

[francesco]

Hy Yago
Could it be something to do with high temperature? At what t did u keep them?
Francesco

 

[yago]

I have AC in my newts room. So temperatures are keep at 24 ºC. Outside temperatures are over 35 ºC! Must be a kind of bacteria or something. It is only affecting those species of juveniles. The main problem is that all are infected or ill

 

[francesco]

My cellar is 24°C (outside 36°C!!!!!)and all newly metamorphosed animals, week individuals that ate less than the others and the ones I got recently died.The ones that survived are the ones I have had for a year wich didn't have any problems. I have learnt a lesson from this:
1)never get new animals during the warmer months (24°C is allready too high for salamandra and alpestris)
2) The weaker individuals are the first to go if the temperature rises too much while the others can tollerate short periods at 24°C
Here in Italy we usually had a couple of weeks of really high temperature during august, this year we've had 4 months!
Ciao

 

[francesco]

I was forgetting...
Yago-I think you're right it seems a bacterial desease but I don't know how to treat it.If I were u I would separate all the infected ones so u don't spread it to the others

 

[juraj]

Hi guys,

1. Off topic: In this summer I can find wild newly morphed fire sals at 26 °C in the forest! Crazy !
But I think they are capable to survive such like periods.
2. I don`t know how to applicate antibiotic so all I would try to do I put animals to more dry and cold environment using small boxes with wet paper towels, 3-4 animals per one box, and keep them at 14-15°C in the fridge.

 

[nate]

Jorge, is the 26 °C air temperature or the temperature in the leaf litter? Usually the microhabitats salamanders use are much cooler than the ambient air temperature. For instance, researchers found Oedepina in Mexico at air temperatures of around 34-36 °C but the leaf litter was still around 20 °C.

 

[yago]

The temperature may not aid the illness but it was not the cause. This year has been terrible in Spain, reaching temperatures over 40 all over the country, even in Galicia, bosca’s newts paradise! Certainly, leaf litter and other hidden places have been newts first aid for that unusual summer. Though, the terrible fires that have been in my region Catalonia have done no good

The source of my juveniles illness is unknown, so many probabilities of possible sources. On the other hand, I am curious if somebody have experience such an illness in their newts? Inflated transparent bellies are very easy to detect, though never happen through my 20 years of experience. Any information on that?

 

[yago]

You cannot really appreciate the transparency of their bellies in those pics, but they are almost cristal clear.

 

[juraj]

Hi Nate,
my last off topic note about temperature: I checked temperature of the leaf litter and it was actually 18°C. I didn`t expect such difference between the air and top layer of the ground.

j.