Hynobius dunni

Bellabelloo · Sep 4, 2015

A little while ago I collected a group of these gorgeous little creatures, captive bred by Chris Michaels.

Currently they are in my shed, I may bring them indoors if the temperatures drop too much that they stop feeding. Following Chris' advice they are in a lidded tub. The base is small rounded gravel with maybe a centimetre of water. To one side I have layered broken terracotta, slate and bricks with moss. This is to allow for different moisture gradients. At present the juveniles seem to favour the damper spots. I suspect that they do go into water as they are also found on a brick the other side to the layered pile. I am feeding them whiteworm, woodlice and small chopped earthworm, I would say they are good little feeders.

They tend not to be very visible, I need to excavate to locate them. I don't do this very often as they tend to react by 'jumping'. I don't want to stress them unnecessarily.

For some reason. a few of the photo's have appeared upside down

Sith the turtle · Sep 4, 2015

Jealous! I wish these were common in the U.S.!

evut · Sep 5, 2015

They are beautiful, congratulations. I hope they will do well for you. How many do you have? And on the scale from Tiger to Opacum, how shy are they?

Bellabelloo · Sep 5, 2015

I have six. On the scale of Tiger to Opacum, they currently sit.... maybe below opacum

They blend in better to their surroundings so a little less visible.

alexps · Sep 5, 2015

I did notice some being listed by a dealer here in England.I had not seen them before,might try looking after some

xxianxx · Sep 7, 2015

Contact froggy the mod on here, he bred them. Dartfrog have some atm

HWALL · Sep 25, 2015

Good luck with them. They are actually quite interesting and rather colorfull when juvenile. Just started back with keeping some Hynobidae overhere among which 1 adult male dunni. Lucky for me some people kept breeding them so that I might get juveniles of my own dunni strain ;-) ... it's happy how life goes ;-)

Bellabelloo · Sep 25, 2015

I am finding these animals really fascinating. Their behaviour is very different from any of my other species.
They eat really well and it seems they have doubled in size already, so far I have not noticed any decrease in feeding as the temperatures drop. After dark I find them roaming round their tub, on occasion there is the odd one in the water (this is only about a cm or so deep) or on the sides of their tub. They seem to like to be in their own space as well. When panicked they jump/ flick them selves to escape...this makes handling them a little more interesting :/

Bellabelloo · Oct 17, 2015

I was feeding the dunni gang earlier and found some swimming in the water. As they stayed still, I quickly measured them, something they don't seem so keen to do on land. They are now close to 4''.

Sith the turtle · Oct 17, 2015

bellabelloo said:
I was feeding the dunni gang earlier and found some swimming in the water. As they stayed still, I quickly measured them, something they don't seem so keen to do on land. They are now close to 4''.

The way they look in the photos make them look like desmognathus species, would these be the Asian equivalents of desmognathus?

HWALL · Oct 24, 2015

I am happy to see this species is still around and was actually able to restart a group of my own again ... made some shots of them which I hope you may like

[/url]Hynobius dunni, juvenile by Henk Wallays, on Flickr[/IMG]

and

[/url]Hynobius dunni, juvenile by Henk Wallays, on Flickr[/IMG]

Bellabelloo · Feb 21, 2016

Over the last week or so I set up an aquarium indoors for them. They had been lurking in a plastic tub since I got them. This afternoon they where added. They hated being handled so I wasn't able to get any photo's of them until one of my older sons called me in to have a look.....His words where '' How adorable, they think we can't see them''

I am probably going to add some more stones, slate and wood towards the right hand side later on.

Bellabelloo · Jul 29, 2016

As their moss needed replacing , I decided to move and add a few bits to their aquarium. They tend to stay closer to the water level where it is damper, so I increased these areas.

Sith the turtle · Jul 30, 2016

Beautiful. Are you planning on breeding them one day?

Bellabelloo · Jul 30, 2016

It would be interesting to see them breed and raise their young. I haven't yet looked to see how soon they mature, but not expecting much over the next few years

Bellabelloo · Oct 22, 2016

Over the last month or so these little lovelies have become far bolder and are less inclined to hide. They seem to think they are mini tigers and often fall over them selves to snatch earthworms from me. Over the last week since the air temperatures have dropped, I have often found one or two of them in the water, so I have re-arranged their set up a little and increased the water depth.

sde · Oct 23, 2016

Wow, those are some really great looking salamanders! They seem like a lot of fun to keep. Thanks for the photos

Bellabelloo · Mar 26, 2017

A little dunni update for you

The adults are doing great. As soon as I walk into their room, they are poking their heads out and jumping into the water hoping for food. I kept them indoors this winter, but I will have them in my shed for next winter.

I few weeks ago, I met the lovely Chris Michaels on a wind swept train station platform (ok, maybe not windswept) and we exchanged bags. This is some of what I received

Chris got some White worm

https://youtu.be/mvoTZ78Va_I

https://youtu.be/mvoTZ78Va_I

Bellabelloo · May 13, 2017

The eggs hatched and they contained many larvae. One egg mass went into one of the out door tubs and these develop very slowly.
The rest where kept on my kitchen window ledge where they stayed cool at night time and warmed up during the day.The tubs had aquatic plants and a couple of greater pond snail. Quite quickly I needed to move some into a second tub. I fed them initially microworm, with the very occasional brine shrimp ( I loathe hatching the shrimp). Quite quickly they moved onto small daphnia. They grew well and fast. They took well to eating crushed Hikari carnivore pellets and cut up white worm.
Being super observant I noticed one was developing faster than the others, eventually I saw it consuming siblings. When it quadrupled the size of its siblings it was sent into solitary confinement. Though it was so much larger than the others, its limb development is much slower. It is one of the last to get hind legs. The photo below is of the antisocial one.
A few weeks ago I moved all the larvae into an outdoor aquarium, where they are thriving and growing well. They are now eating larger daphnia, small blood worm and chopped white worm. Now that mosquito are laying eggs, they are feeding on the larvae of these.

Niels D · May 14, 2017

Nice! I loathe hatching brineshrimp as well, but a hatching dish makes it a bit more easy. No air pump or seperating the egg shells!

Artemia Hatchery Dish | Hatching Brine Shrimp

Hynobius dunni

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