This newsletter contains the observations of Jean Raffaelli on his Desmognathus monticola breeding, some observations on Caecilians, and an overview of the lectures held at both the German and Dutch Urodela circles.
TYPHLONECTES COMPRESSICAUDA
In September, I checked up on my Typhlonectes animals. The colony originally started out with 5 juvenile animals, from which I have obtained 2 clutches in the last 2 years (each of 5 young). A month ago I finally decided to give 3 juveniles to a friend, who also keeps 2 other adults.
My tank holds a bioblok filter, which seems to be one of their favourite places to hide. The filter has some cotton wool material to remove dirt from the water. They especially like to roll themselves into that material, lying in the upper water layers. Therefore, I put a vase into the tank, put in on its side, and filled it up with that same cotton wool... it’s not exactly a natural sight, but since its introduction, this has become their favourite spot. Every few minutes, you can see a shy head coming out, reaching to the surface of the water to gulp some air. Since I wanted to see how they were doing, I dug up the vase and inspected them: they all seemed to be doing well. All were well-fed and showed no wounds or other abnormal signs. What I did see was that at least one female is ready to reproduce again. Two other females also looked quite fat, but since I had just fed them, I cannot be sure (yet). So if all goes well, this should mean that we will again have youngsters within a month (or 2)...
For breeding of this species in Belgium and Holland, I keep a studbook, which in this case is an exaggeration - in the current inventory, only 2 people are keeping them here. See the current status below:
STUDBOOK: TYPHLONECTES COMPRESSICAUDA
NUMBER OF ANIMALS
NEW ANIMALS
DEATH
ESCAPE
END OF YEAR
# of KEEPERS
START
10
0
0
10
3
F-1 1999
5
0
0
15
3
F-1 2000
5
1
0
19
3
F-1 2001
2
TOTAL
20
1
0
19
2
TYLOTOTRITON VERRUCOSUS
The last 2 weeks of August were very hot. I measured up to 37°C in the sun, with 32°C in lightly shaded areas. Although most of my salamander species obviously do not like these hot temperatures, this did seem to have a positive affect my crocodile newts. The day that the temperatures dropped and a little rain had fallen, they started spawning (barometric pressure ?). The females wriggled themselves through the large banks of Fontinalis sp. - which are looking more like a green coral reef - and deposited their eggs. In order to prevent the adults from eating them (which they do !) the eggs were removed on a daily basis. I checked the temperatures which were a surprisingly high 27°C. At this temperature, the salamanders still seem to do very well. At these temperatures, the 5 adults are indeed quite active and alert and in the never-ending process of searching for food. They kind of react like Cynops species, nervously and quickly swimming around, biting at each others head and tail in order to chase the other party and reserve the food for themselves.
ICHTHYOPSIS KOHTAOENSIS
I obtained these handsome Caecilians more then a year ago as totally brown juveniles (when they are young they lack that bright lateral yellow line) and reared them up feeding them mosquito larvae and small earthworms. Initially, both were kept in a set-up with moist leaf litter, which I get from the nearby woods. About 3 months ago, one of the juveniles had stopped growing and didn’t seem to do very well: it looked thin. After separating it, it started growing again. I have reared both the animals separately since. As they got larger, they were fed mainly with earthworms, slugs and some buffalo worms. Currently both seem to be doing very well, each in its own container, but the little one still has some catching up to do. I have never seen them out in the open, they stay underground. During the last Gersfeld meeting, Alex Kupfer showed me an adult animal, and I can see that my larger animal has now reached its adult size. The difficulties rearing them together support the remark of D. Hofer that they are territorial and that rearing each separately is best. Also I wish to point out an interesting article concerning captive care and breeding of this species written by Himdsted & Kupfer in Salamandra magazine. I still need to read it myself, but I will get into it and report later.
This week I have been contacted by a university here that may have 6 extra animals available. They were in fact searching for someone to keep them and it looks like I may obtain them. There’s also another source where I may get 4 more, so if this works out well I am going to have a good breeding group and I will definitely try to breed them.
GERMAN URODELA CIRCLE: NEW MAGAZINE
From next year on, the German Urodela & Anura workgroups (dght) will begin to issue a new magazine called Amphibia. The majority of the articles will most likely be written in German, but they will also make room for English articles. The magazine will be printed twice a year, and each time have 32 pages. Since I will be one of the participants (mainly dedicated to the English part) I will keep you updated on further developments as they come. Anyone wishing to offer valuable information on ecology and captive care of species is free to contact me. Anyone interested in a subscription to this magazine may contact me for more details.
DESMOGNATHUS MONTICOLA (by J. Raffaeli)
“This species, which can measure 14 cm TL, is very attractive. They live on rocks in streams, even under bright daylight.One pair has reproduced twice. The tank consists of an aquarium with a cave (1,70 m x 0,80 m) with flowing water. The reproduction strategy has not been observed, but I saw the egg laying. The female looked for a small bark on the ground not far from water and laid more than 20 eggs attached under the bark. The female attends the eggs until hatching. Two years ago, I removed the bark to see the eggs, and after that, many of them were eaten. I nevertheless was able to keep four eggs, which were pushed out by the female. Now there are four young of 6 - 8 cm length.
A new egglaying occured this summer at a temperature of 17-18°C (water) and 20°C (air). I did not removed the bark where the female was staying all the time, but I was able to take out 8 eggs that were not well attached to the bark. I put them on wet sphagnum in a very small box where they seem to be developing. During the egg-laying, the male stays far from the female, inside the rocks, half in the water. This species eats mostly worms, flies and crickets.”
As entered by Jean.
DUTCH ROYAL SALAMANDER GROUP MEETING
This year the event was organised somewhat closer to home, at the Oliemeulen in Tilburg. This location is a little Zoo and so we were also able to look at various reptiles, poison arrow frogs and spiders…. all kept in neatly cleaned tanks. But however much we looked, there was not a single salamander to be found. The program contained 4 lectures:
SALAMANDRA
Serge Bogaerts offered us an interesting general lecture on the genus Salamandra: variations in coloration, ecology, taxonomy, reproduction … He discussed various habitats and gave a general overview of the current phylogenetic status from the perspective of both morphology and DNA. This once again proved Serge’s knowledge about his preferred genus and showed us his voluminous slide material built up while studying the genus during various European and African trips.
AMBYSTOMA OPACUM
Guy Haeghebaert gave a lecture on his breeding success with A. opacum. Guy had put his animals in an outdoor terrarium and, while cleaning it, he stumbled upon 2 nests with a total of about 90 eggs. We were able to see the development from larvae to metamorphosed juveniles. The mysteries of breeding this species seem to be more and more resolved: breeding has so far been restricted to outdoor enclosures. Another Dutch keeper, E. Peters, has bred them for 2 consecutive years now, also in outdoor enclosures.
CYNOPS CYANURUS – PARAMESOTRITON
Frank Pasmans offered us his viewpoints on keeping and breeding Cynops cyanurus, Paramesotriton caudopunctatus and P. chinensis. He keeps all 3 of these species under approximately the same captive conditions, with temperatures ranging as low as 3-4°C in the winter. Frank told us that he finds it necessary to go so low in temperature as this positively influences the outcome of a breeding. Paramesotriton hongkongensis, on the other hand, is best not kept at such a low temperatures, which again stresses the importance of knowing which species you are keeping.
Differences between P. fuzhongensis and P. chinensis. Frank also briefly explained his view of the differences between P. chinensis and P. fuzhongensis. Here are the some of the points that he summed up. P. chinensis has a more faint grey-brown coloration (when not stressed). Typical for this species are some scattered yellow dots on the lateral side and at the attachment points of the limbs. The warts are like little knobbles and not pointed. The animals are stoutly built. P. fuzhongensis have a darker brown coloration, and their warts are more sharply pointed. They lack the yellow dots.
Currently Frank has successfully bred Cynops cyanurus and has some larvae swimming around.
OREGON – CALIFORNIA TRIP
With my habit of talking longer then the allotted time, the organisers played it safe and put me at the end of the series. As such, I presented my trip through Oregonand Northern Californiaas it was made, location by location. In total, about 14 species passed along the scene with, among others, images of habitats, geographical variations in P. elongates and Ensatina e. oregonensis…
TYLOTOTRITON
I am quite unhappy to tell of my misfortune with both T. shangjing and T. taliangensis. For both groups, I suffered serious losses: despite my best intentions, I was not able to keep up with them. F. Pasmans has already shown interest in investigating the nuptial dance in some of these species and will get my remaining T. taliangensis. I have no definite idea what went wrong with either of the groups. In T. taliangensis I lost all but one of them after refreshing the soil in the tank. In fact, when I returned from the German weekend I found them lying dead in the tank. They had been quite healthy on Thursday evening (the day before departure) when I had given them their usual worms for dinner (they had a healthy appetite). With T. shangjing I think that I may have kept them too dry. All of these animals were captive breeding products of other people. In order to prevent further losses, I have decided not to invest further in this genus (with the exception of T. verucosus) and will try to devote more of my time to my main interest, Hynobius.
HYNOBIUS
Well, for those of you that would like to hear about the Hynobius dunni rearing project, this is going a little bit too well. Up to now I have lost only 2 juveniles after metamorphosis, which brings the total offspring to 277 juveniles. Most of these animals have been spread among various keepers (19), so it looks like this species is softly settling in.
What's more is that among the distributed offspring of 2 years ago, only one animal has died. Below, you can see the current status of the studbook. All animals are from the same genetic group from Beppu-Shi, Japan. I might eventually obtain another genetic breeding group later this year.
STUDBOOK: HYNOBIUS DUNNI
NUMBER OF ANIMALS
NEW ANIMALS
DEATH
ESCAPE
END OF YEAR
# of KEEPERS
START
10
3
0
7
1
F-1 1998
1
1
0
8
1
F-1 1999
43
3
2
51
5
F-1 2000
7
4
1
58
5
F-1 2001
277
2
0
335
19
TOTAL
351
13
3
335
19
SLIDE SCANNER
I have finally chosen and ordered a serious slide-scanner, the NIKON IV. It will be delivered mid-December, after which I will be able to send out jpg’s of my whole slide collection with more ease. Recently, I have been contacted by some publishers from the UK and Australiato help with material for their books, and it is hardly imaginable what I have all been going through: slide scan miss-interpretations, 1 hour jobs lasting up to 4 days, repro on paper instead of CDROM...
I wanted to have entire control over the process and at the same time have a shorter reply period. So if all goes well with the software, this should allow me to be (slide) active by the end of December.
Addendum: The scanner arrived and I am currently busy unravelling the mysteries of the machine, which works pretty well for now. Up to 80 images have been scanned in, including some older shots on negatives. The crop function is quite handy to extract from a blurry image the central well focused part … now I am happy that I did not throw them away before.
GERMAN URODELA MEETING
As always, there were some interesting discussions and lectures about various species. For the very first time (at least over the period that I have attended these meetings) there was an Italian lecture (on Salamandrina terdigitata). But long after the lectures had ended, the interesting talks continued… late into the night. John Clare brought us some interesting views on the reproduction behaviour of Tylototriton verrucosus which might finally reveal some new interesting aspects (John, observe them further). Aside from the usual mutual exchange of breeding and keeping info, there were discussions on how to set up studbooks in a more practical way (involving groups of animals and not individuals). Finally, I wish to remark that I did hear about some captive bred N. kaiserii. Through the grapevine, I also heard that, in addition to these juveniles, there are other people that have some adult specimens ready to breed … which is quite a comforting thought….
T. CARNIFEX INVASION
M. Franzen discussed a study on the invasion of T. carnifex into Southeast Bayeren, where this species has even start to overtake the T. cristatus habitats. Coincidently, I received a copy of a study done by S. Bogaerts on that same topic for that same species: it seems that in the Veluwe, Holland they also have an established population.
MIDDLE AMERICAN PLETHODONTIDS
Another interesting lecture offered us a view on the life of the Bolitoglossa /Plethodontini species of middle America. Through various slides of habitats and animals, I got my first insight into how these sometimes intriguing morphological curiosities live. Concerning the captive care of these species, there is still much to learn and find as currently most of the available species do not seem to live long. However, the first captive breeding reports on Bolitoglossa mexicana are already available in Germany.
IDENTIFICATION OF INDIVIDUAL SALAMANDRA SPECIMENS THROUGH THE DEVELOPMENT OF COLOR PATTERNS
Due to a phone call, I missed most of Serge Bogaert’s speech. Serge specifically showed that it is possible to recognize individual animals from various species and subspecies of fire salamander. The talk was illustrated with images of animals that he had bred himself, and which he had followed from as early as metamorphosis or birth (in the live bearing S. algira for instance) until adulthood. In some species, the yellow patterns broke up and made new patterns, while in other species the colorations faded away.
STATUS OF T. ALPESTRIS REISERI
J. Fleck discussed the habitat of T. alpestris reiseri (currently no longer taxonomically supported). This unusual (mainly neotenic) T. alpestris form lives in the little Proposko Lake in Bosnia. When Jurgen first visited the area (some 30 years ago) there were plenty of these animals around. This time, and after quite an extensive search, they found only 2 metamorphosed adults. The formerly uninhabited area has meanwhile become a Sunday meeting place, where cars are driven in the lake and ‘nicely washed’… So it seems that at the same time they may be washing away this race. Personally, I had never seen this animal before, and was kind of surprised to see such a wide-headed T. alpestris species… I currently have no idea how the studbook runs for this species (there is one). Another worthy bit of information was that during their visit out there, Jurgen also looked over at a nearby lake (only 1 km away, at higher elevation). Although they did find T. alpestris there, these animals did not have the T. alpestris reiseri morphology at all, and instead looked quite like the ‘normal’ T. alpestris.
HYNOBIUS LEECHI AND H. CHINENSIS
Max Sparreboom discussed his visits to Korea where, in a daring way, he left on a exploratory trip to a park to see the habitat of H. leechii. Koreais not that easy when it comes to travelling since the inhabitants do not seem to speak other languages, and the signboards seldom show non-Korean signs. Max’s images were quite interesting for my Hynobius-eyes. Pictures of habitats are not common in Hynobidae. Another interesting topic concerned his experiences with rearing Hynobius chinensis animals. It was clear that the juveniles of this Hynobius species also show the remarkable lateral neon-blue coloured dots. So far, the only Hynobius species in which I have not seen this coloration is H. retardatus.
PARAMESOTRITON CHINENSIS VERSUS P. FUZHONGENSIS
Our Belgian Paramesotriton specialist, Henri Janssens, gave his viewpoints on the differences between P. chinensis and P. fuzhongensis. Henri has been able to breed both species and showed us some slides of larvae which convinced most of the participants that these animals are NOT the same species. The larvae of P. chinensis are entirely black, even the gills. The larvae of P. fuzhongensis have red gills and white lateral dots. The metamorphosed juveniles of both the species have a strikingly different coloration: P. chinensis are darker and more black, while P. fuzhongensis are more brown with a red vertebral ridge. The differences were further strengthened by statistical data involving very clear differences in the total length at metamorphosis (done on the basis of individual measurements of 200 - 300 juveniles). Other differences: The adult P. chinensis have a higher tail, and the underside of the tail has an unbroken red/orange line. The underside tail of P. fuzhongensis is also orange, but the orange is sometimes broken up by the brown coloration. There was also a remark on the difference between the distance of the eye relative to the jaw in both the adult species, but I have unfortunately forgotten to write down which one was the shortest… All of this was explained with Henri’s usual crystal clear quality slides. This lecture certainly showed the effort and time that Henri has put into the study of this genus and the fact that thorough study of even one of the most imported species can still be quite rewarding. I think it would be a good idea to try and put a summary (at least) of this lecture into Amphibia magazine in the future. The sole problem will probably be to convince Henri to publish his results. Henri being one of those people who think they just never know enough to make a statement, whereas everyone else would be quite happy with just a fraction of Henri’s Paramesotriton knowledge… (I would !).
TAXONOMY OF CHINESE SALAMANDERS
Jurgen Fleck was quite active this year, and gave another lecture on the taxonomy of Chinese salamanders, through a study of various sources and books. The only thing that became clear was that there are still many unclear things about the whole taxonomy: species have been moved away in and out of new taxa (e.g., some Hynobidae) , other species have been synonymized (e.g., Paramesotriton) … The same animals occur in other genera depending on the source... I think a short summary of this speech would best be called 'Chinese confusion', further strengthened when, at the end, Jurgen showed an image of what he called P. fuzhongensis but which, in my opinion, was a P. chinensis. I think we will still see some changes in the Chinese urodela taxonomy in both Paramesotriton and Pachytriton.
OREGON AND CALIFORNIA SALAMANDER TRIP
In a huge slide marathon, I tried to give an impression of my last trip to the States, covering Northern California and Oregon. Altogether, about 14 species passed in revue, including an overview on the coloration of Ensatina by locality, and some attention to the torrent salamanders (Rhyacotriton genus). This time, the speech was given species by species. I intend to make an English article on this topic for publication in Amphibia magazine.
SHORT LECTURES
Jens Crueger offered a short talk on the captive care and breeding of salamanders of the Notophthalmus genus. Afterwards, I gave more insight on how I bred and reared the N. crocatus offspring of 2000. Since I intend to submit an illustrated English translation of this lecture for Amphibia magazine, I will not discuss this here. Another short lecture was offered by the Austrian Mr. Faltermeyer discussing breeding and rearing of Tylototriton species with impressive success.
Well, this is it for now, hope you enjoyed it! It looks like in the next magazine I will be able to talk a little more about other Hynobius species that may reach Belgium.
Henk Wallays
Ter Goedingen 40
B-9881 Bellem (Aalter)
Belgium