Biting during mating (C. pyrrhogaster)

[TJ]

Has anybody else here witnessed much biting during mating, with this species? This morning, I noticed a commotion in the tank and was surprised to find this male in a bit of a breeding frenzy, chomping on the side of a female with his mouth open wide. Not nipping repeatedly, but seemingly using his mouth grip to hold her in place (like say male ferrets do when they mate). I'm going to go through my various documents on this species to see if I can find mention of this as a C. pyrrhogaster breeding behavior. Sorry to say the camera was not immediately available as this was going on.

Check out the starfish-shaped back feet on this male

(Message edited by TJ on November 20, 2005)

 

[TJ]

Swollen cloaca, papillae present:

 

[TJ]

 

[TJ]

Prominent paratoids:

 

[TJ]

 

[terry]

That photo almost makes it look like it is hovering. Very lovely picture, Tim!
Now I have not seen any biting in Cynops but I have recorded many instances of biting in Triturus during mating. No one replied to my "aggression in Triturus"thread. So I cannot confirm if this is "normal"behaviour.

 

[TJ]

Thanks, Terry. It came out surprisingly well

Those are all pics of the very same newt, unless I'm mistaken...

There's some biting among this species during feeding, but I haven't seen much at other times. I've got a paper somewhere that describes C. pyrrhogaster mating behavior in some detail, just gotta dig it up.

 

[paul]

Hi Tim,

something like this? (C.p.-Kanagawa Prefecture)

Paul

 

[TJ]

That's it, Paul! ...though my amorous male was chomping down on the female's midriff, not its head

Have you come up with any hypotheses about the purpose for this behavior? In my case, it almost seemed the male was trying to hold the female in place to "receive his ministrations"...but I might be wrong as to the motivation as my observation lasted only a minute or so. He seemed pretty worked up, to say the least!

 

[jennifer]

That's quite nice breeding color on that male, Tim. I've never seen biting, though the males seem to use every other trick in the book to attract the female's attention!

I'm pretty sure that my "pet shop pyrrhogaster" are Sasayame, because the male holds onto the female using one back foot. This is supposed to be unique to Sasayame.

 

[TJ]

Hi Jen.

As for the back foot thing, this behavior has also been recorded with the "Atsumi race" of C. pyrrhogaster (which may now be extinct). I've just now e-mailed you a photo of this

I meant to point this out before, but while recently editing thread titles for species name accuracy, I took the liberty of changing the title of one of your threads to "C. pyrrhogaster metamorphs: Kanto vs. Sasayama" because you had "Sasayame" written there too. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but the scientific name given when it was thought this newt could be a distinct subspecies was Cynops pyrrhogaster sasayamae -- "Sasayama" being a geographical name as is "Kanto" (Sasayama is a town in Hyogo Prefecture, while Kanto is the name of a vast plain that includes Tokyo). My understanding is that "e" is added onto the end of a geographical name (or a female personal name?), and "i" is added to a male personal name (as in the case of Hynobius dunni named after Dunn or Cynops ensicauda popei named after Pope). So I think one should refer to these newts either as "Sasayama�@pyrrhogaster" or to "C. p. sasayamae". In the scientific papers I have, it is indeed referred to as the Sasayama race. Have you by any chance seen it anywhere referred to as Sasayame?

As far as background goes, it was previously assumed, on the basis of morphology, that the Sasayama race was a distinct subspecies, but electrophoretic data has since shown that it's very close genetically to adjacent populations of "Hiroshima race" C. pyrrhogaster. In contrast, those C. pyrrhogaster from southern Kyushu that had been lumped together with newts from a wide area of Japan as "Hiroshima race" pyrrhogaster have been shown to be comparatively much more distinct genetically from all other C. p. populations. There are a number of examples of this also in Japanese hynobiids, namely animals looking different morphologically but being genetically close, and those looking similar morphologically but being genetically distant.

(Message edited by tj on November 21, 2005)

 

[henk]

Tim, I tohught that aggression/biting was also recorded in the Kanto race. bUT I am not entirely sure. I have the article somewhere , it is form the hand of Sawada. I think it is one of these both.

1973 Sawada S., Studies on the local races o/t Japanese Newt : Sexual Isolation Mechanisms, ?:0(0):1/14 Topics : reproduction
1982 Sawada S., Studies on the local races o/t Japanese Newt : Morphological characters, ?:0(0):1/39 Topics : reproduction

I have finally been able to export my article - library text delimited file to a to acess so that I can freely query again... and start actulaising it (after 4 years of silence)

 

[paul]

Hi,
this biting is described from different C.pyrrhogaster forms and also from C. orientalis after the female took up the sperm.
In the last years I spend a lot of hours, watching the courting of my newts. I never saw this biting in C. orientalis, C. ensicauda, C. pyrrhogaster from Niigata or C.pyrrhogaster sasayamae. But my C.p. male from Kanagawa Prefecture very often bites the female at the end of mating.
Some speculations interpret this as an attempt to prevent that the female mate with other males. But I think, the reason also can be to prevent that the female lose the sperm to early by climbing through the plants. But both are only speculations.

Paul