C.orientalis larva

[AngieD]

The fire-bellied newt larva I'm looking after is starting to puzzle me slightly. Its fed on daphnia, and has grown a fair bit. I'm just wondering if there is an average age that they morph at? (I'm not in a hurry for it to morph, because I'm quite nervous about it morphing). Another thing that confused me is that the gills shrank a little bit about 1 1/2 months ago, and then grew bigger again.

It hatched on 29th June.

 

[evut]

Generally, the bigger the animal is when it morphs, the better. Metamorphosis is a difficult time for it - it will shrink in size and it will probably stop eating for days so if it already is a strong individual there is a smaller risk of something going wrong.

http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/raising_juveniles.shtml

 

[AngieD]

I hope it'll get bigger soon then - it's appetite has certainly increased this week