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Who out there....

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paris

Guest
if anyone is paying attention-they will know that this section hardly ever gets posts, admittedly these sals are limited to most due to lack of access (not lack of making great pets). true- some sections-like the giant sal section that combines sirens with hellbenders and mudpuppies- have more posts because they contain more species, but still......

sooo....i am wondering just how many in our audience here at caudata.org keep these beauties? i myself have 2 Dicamptodon ensatus (if anyone out there has a spare female let me know-i very well cant breed them with just 2 males!)- i know of only 2 people but i think they cant be THAT uncommon. anyone in europe keep them? how many people have the morphed varieties and how many have the neotenic ones? - anything unusual about keeping the neotenic ones -or are they as easy to keep as most neotenic sals-like mudpuppies?
 
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russ

Guest
Wow, I knew these were rare in collections, but.....

I have found a few adults and a bucket load of larvae over the years, but I've always shied away from keeping them. Do you have a pic of your set-up for them?

RUSS
 
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paris

Guest
not on hand right now-i had to separate them cause they kept biting each other-i had seen them do it-it didnt appear to be aggression but reflexive feeding that caused them to chomp on each other-there were 2 in a 50 g tank-but they turned out to both be males -so i saw no reason to keep them together...
 
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travis

Guest
I keep both Dicamptodon ensatus and tenebrosis. I have two small/medium sized terrestrial adults of D. tenebrosis and two D. ensatus which I raised from larvae and morphed last year by dropping the water and increasing temperature. They are among my favorite captives. Great personality and eating habits etc.
My only problem is that I personally think breeding them would be near impossible for an average hobbyist and extremely difficult for even a zoo with all the resources needed.
I know several people who aren't caudata.org folk that keep them. They are found pretty widely in Northern CA where I live so I am sure local herpers have come across them on rainy nights and keep them.
Travis

(Message edited by norcalsal on December 13, 2004)
 
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paris

Guest
travis,
well since no one seems to know how to or what triggers breeding, the limitations are also unknown (although i DO stand by the idea that you need at least 1 male and 1 female
smile6.gif
...but thats not true for all salamanders, and we didnt know that until recently) like the arboreal salamander breedings, i am not sure that it was an issue of sudden success or just of lack of trying in the past. there is always such a thing as luck.
 
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josh

Guest
when i lived in washington, i used to keep copes giant salamanders. they are very strange and pretty hard to keep. has anyone else kept copes??
 
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russ

Guest
I think Travis hit the nail about how to attain these though. You're probably best off collecting larvae and raising them since they're a lot easier to find than adults.

RUSS
 
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travis

Guest
Yeah, the adults are pure luck to come across.Larvae are easy, I have found them by the dozens. It isn't impossible to find adults on rainy nights in sections of the stream with some nice boulders and cracks but catching them is a whole other story. Rainy nights sometimes bring them out on the road and thats how I have heard most people caught their adults.
I've seen only a handful of adults while seeing hundreds of larvae.
Paris, thats a good spirit to have with these guys...who knows they could be triggered easily somehow, nobody knows much of anything. I have a feeling they would be quite an undertaking though.
Travis
 

michael

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Sorry for my ignorance, but where exactly are the problems in keeping and breeding them?
I can imagine that if you offer them a sufficient enclosure and some kind of annual change in climate it should work?

Am I wrong?

Michael
 
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paris

Guest
problem isnt having them its getting them, i have found the morphed ones very easy to keep-although i do know of someone who had lots of bad luck with neotenic/larval ones. access is the main stumping issue, that is why despite having 2 i have not been able to get any more.
 
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greg

Guest
For those of us who live outside the range of these beasts... we have an even slimmer chance of getting them. Unless a caudata.org member offers free larvae or something... most of us will never get a chance to even try to keep them. let alone breed them.

Although, I'm up for a road trip.

greg
 
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benjamin

Guest
I have a book which says that breeding can only be done in a large out door aquarium in cool slow flowing water. Eggs take 8 weeks to develop and can take up to two years to reach metamorphosis.
 
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paris

Guest
which book-let us in on it-the only reference i have to the eggs is an old photo.
 

dot

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I wasn't aware that Ben had experience with Dicamptodon enough to be giving advice on breeding.

I would much rather trust Paris, Russ or Travis on information regarding these species, as they've kept them and are familiar with their care.

And I wouldn't be quick to take advice from someone who claims he read about it in some book. Case in point: Though the Peter Scott axolotl book is somewhat informative, the information in it is not considered the best.
 
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ira

Guest
i have a strong suspicion the book he is using is this:

tfhbook.jpg



because it is the only book i know of that covers such a large number of caudate species in the same place. I own this book, and it has pretty good photos and i have used it as a reference when trying to find out a scientific name or what a creature looks like. However, alot of the care information in the book is outdated.

if it is a different book, please let me know, i would like to get it.
 
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edward

Guest
Hi Dot,
I wouldn't consider what Ben said to be giving advice he was citing what he had read (although it would have helped if he named the book).

Ira there are some incorrectly identified pictures in the book, one of a Bolitoglossa comes to mind...


Ed
 
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ira

Guest
yeah, the T. verrocosus in that book is also in correctly labled.

i take it with a grain of salt. It was published 10 years ago when alot of the species (like tylototriton) wernt that well understood by hobbyists.
 
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benjamin

Guest
It is the book Ira mentioned. Sorry I didn't give the name, and yes I agree the book is outdated; however, it does have plenty of good information, and it is the only book I know of which discusses dicamptodon breeding.
 
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edward

Guest
A lot of the breeding information in that book appear to not be based on experience but on a best guess analysis of the animal's habitat. Which is not a bad starting point, I just would not consider it to be gospel.
Old articles in various herp journals often give very exacting habitat descriptions for where animals were collected and are often better starting points.

Ed
 
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