Ralf, you most certainly do have my permission
I don't yet have (and have not yet even seen) the book you mentioned:
Les Salamandres de l'Ancien Monde
Robert Thorn and Jean Raffa
2001
I might order away for it today though as it seems to be a "must" reference work, though regrettably it's not available in English.
To be fair, I've seen Japanese-language references to female C.ensicauda reaching as much as 179cm in length and I've seen ones in the wild as long as 170cm -- though I haven't documented it properly.
This being a long-lived species, the larger ones have steadily been disappearing in the wild due to over-collecting, especially in the southern part of Okinawa Island, where the average size is getting smaller and smaller with the passage of time.
Here is a pic showing a huge female (upper righthand corner) that we rescued from a drainage ditch and then released when I and the wife were in the north of the island last December. C.e.p adults in the north are said to be generally smaller than those in the south. I measured her (the newt, not the wife) but can't recall the figure and have since misplaced my notes
I'm still looking for a pic I have somewhere of an even longer one (though not longer than 18cm) that we found. It was really skinny though, probably due to internal parasites.
Kaysie, "Splendid" sends her greetings and thanks
No tail-grafting involved, but I'd sure like to know how she got so big. She came to me "secondhand" through a third party so I have no background on her age, origin, former feeding regimen, etc.
(Message edited by TJ on July 23, 2004)
