Surprise Noto Morph!!!

One of the things I love about this hobby is the surprise...the times I've gone to look into my tanks and GASPED in amazement and delight. Today (less than 1/2 hour ago) is one such moment!

I have cb Notos that have been in my tank a few years...they do the mating thing in the early spring...but I've never gotten any eggs from females that I didn't catch pregnant. This year I put the female into her own tank after a few weeks of mating, and I left her there for 2 months so that she could lay eggs in there so that no one would eat them if there were any. No eggs. I put her back in the community tank.

Today I'm doing my water change and as the water level lowers, there, on a tank decoration, is the teeniest tiniest little Noto morphling! GASP! OMG! How did it survive?? It must have been disguised as a baby guppy! SO, I quickly set up a tank, put it in there, searched for any other little morphlings (none), and voila! a genuine captive bred Notophthalmus viridescens!

Well, this is the happy part. Luckily I presently have springtail and two types of fruit fly cultures going for all the other larvae I have (M. alpestris, A. maculatum, and T. grans). Last time I tried to raise a batch of Noto morphlings, there were about 30, and every week one or two died until they were all gone. I didn't have the heart to try again, but it's being thrust upon me. Isn't this just the most amazing miracle? not only just a larva out of nowhere, but a morph! I'm just speechless (luckily that doesn't extend to typing).

So here are pics.

1) my first glimpse of the little thing (I decided to name him "Little Macke", after the most vociferous supporter of captive breeding here on the forum)

2) a close up of that same pic

3) the tank itself. The water level is down, I'd just removed the water before I was about to add. Also in my excitement I grabbed some things to put in Little Macke's tank, which I just laid on top of decorations in the old tank, the little pot and the blue thing

4) Little Macke's new home. I hope he makes it, I'm not very confident, but I have a better food supply than I used to and hopefully more experience!

Rofl

otterwoman said:

(I decided to name him "Little Macke", after the most vociferous supporter of captive breeding here on the forum)

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:rofl: Too funny! I'm honored! Maybe you should shorten it to "Mack", which is how people often mispronounce my name anyway.

I too have had such surprises - baby newts or larvae showing up in tanks where I never saw any eggs. It's a pretty exciting experience. The baby looks very small, so I worry about little Mack's long-term survival. But nonetheless, an exciting discovery!

P.S. I love your Noto tank. You should post that in the photo gallery.

I concur his chances are slim...about as slim as he is...but I know we're all rooting for him.

I misspoke (mistyped) in my first entry and it's too late to edit it: the parents are wc, not cb.
("I have cb Notos that have been in my tank a few years" they are WC. Sorry!

Little Macke is still with us!

Thats great! I hope the little one has siblings some day
Heather

Here are some pictures of Little Macke today. He looks the same to me, but he must be doing OK if he's still alive. So, is that pronounced "Mack" or "Macky"?

Looking good

It's looking good! I'm trying to judge size from the picture with your hand, and it appears that it's about the correct size. Notos are always smallish. I'm rooting for him/her.

(I'm pronounced mackey, but maybe you should just call the newt "Mack" for short.:wink

amazing, I wish i could get some surprises like that(i think i would need a pair of something first....)anyways he is a tiny little guy and I hope he makes it

What a tiny cutie - hope he thrives and prospers!

oh well, rats, rats, rats, rats. He was doing so well, then he crawled onto the side of the tank and up into the top that I have covered with fabric so he couldn't squeeze out. Somehow he just adhered to the fabric and dessicated. He was getting so plump and cute! RATS!

Alas, my namesake didn't make it.

That's the thing, he WAS making it, and then he pulls some stupid stunt...sometimes this hobby is SO frustrating Once I had a bunch of wc noto eggs that hatched, about 30, and I raised them to morphing, and then every week a few of them died until they were all gone. Like there's not enough misery in our lives, we have to have a hobby that makes us cry too. Or at least, I do.

otterwoman said:

I had a bunch of wc noto eggs that hatched, about 30, and I raised them to morphing, and then every week a few of them died until they were all gone.

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I've had 2 similar experiences with Notophthalmus morphs/juveniles. It's not an easy species.

What happened with yours?
I had mine in a tank with paper towels and/or flannel (100% cotton and clean) and about 1/4 inch of water with a lot of things sticking out that they could get out of the water: mostly small rocks. They'd stick up about 1/2 inch. So, mine would crawl out on a rock and just let themselves dessicate. It's like they were committing suicide and it drove me crazy. I tried to raise the water so that they wouldn't be able to do that, but they'd manage to find something to crawl out on and dessicate. I don't think it was the water, though. It was always treated, and fresh.

I heard that some morphs can get skin problems if the environment is too humid, Notos are different?
*Does dessicate mean dry up?
Maybe if the only land available was wet moss, they would stay alive?

I really know what you mean about the sad times that keeping newts can leave you in when things go wrong, quite deppressing..

Yes, dessicate means dry up. Like a november leaf.
I was thinking about newts while I was at work tonight and I thought, what about sponges as a substrate? They could stay wet and still walk on them (be terrestrial). Or at least sticking out of the water. Then they couldn't crawl on top of them and dry out, as they can with rocks. I'm going to try this.

Funny Dawn, just the other day I was thinking of using sponges as islands/substrates. I was concerned about some of them being treated with antimicrobial chemicals and the like, but I guess if you purchase an actual sponge then it could work. Real sponges wouldn't have any residual salt, right?

I few years ago, I had some success with N. v. l. juvies. I'd had some WC adults that were courting in the pond, and they laid some eggs in captivity. Most of them died due to inexperience at the time and mistakes, but two wound up morphing successfully. I kept them for well over a year, in springtail cultures essentially, with moss and leaf litter for them to hide in, misted every so often. They did well (so well that I could completely ignore them for a month or so and they'd be doing great, so long as the springtails were present in high enough numbers), but grew so slowly that after a year, I made the mistake of trying to get them to go aquatic. I included a small water feature in their box, in the hopes that they'd grow out of their eft stage anywhere from then to a year or so (hoping they'd leave the eft stage earlier in captivity), and then they wound up drowning in it during a move. I felt pretty bad.

I've heard there are ways to get Notos to skip the eft stage, but whether or not these work, I don't know. Some populations completely skip efts, and some are neotenic, so these populations probably hold the most promise. In Florida, I'd found a few neotenic adults (N. v. piaropicola) with full gills, and would have kept a few, but I'd been hoping to move down there to collect them then, but my plan changed since then. Oh well, I guess we live and learn.

I was thinking cheap dollar store sponges and then rinsing them really well first. Maybe even a trip in the microwave. Here's a lovely picture though: a sponge infested with blackworms. Because I'm sure they'll crawl in there. Maybe, however, if the sponges are in any way toxic, I could test them on blackworms first. If they can live in them, then newts could live on them?