Do japanese FBN hibernate?

[josh]

i just want to know if japanese fire bellied newts hibernate,do they? if so how do i handle hibernation?

 

[william]

you don't need to worry about that. i'm not sure if they "hibernate" in the wild, but you don't need to in captivity.

 

[jennifer]

There was recently a lengthy discussion of whether salamanders "hibernate" or not:
http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/7618/41818.html
It depends on how you define hibernate. Salamanders will eat less the colder they get. But they will never go into a sleep-like state and completely stop activity.

 

[TJ]

I have seen wild Japanese FBNs in bodies of water in the dead of winter.

 

[jennifer]

Tim, were the FBN still active at that temp? I assume that the water was close to freezing temp?

 

[TJ]

No, they weren't active. This was in an area of northern Hyogo Prefecture along the Japan Sea Coast that is buried in snow almost all winter. It was the garden pond in the front yard of my ex-wife's house. The pond wasn't frozen over at the time, as far as I can recall (this was 15 years ago!), but I wouldn't be surprised if it does freeze over.

Considering that Cynops pyrrhogaster is such a wide-ranging species in Japan, I wonder how well those from the warmer southern part of its range can tolerate the kind of low winter temperatures that are the norm for those in the northern part of the range.

Speaking of temperature tolerance, what's the case with Notophthalmus viridescens in different parts of the U.S., for example?

(Message edited by TJ on September 20, 2005)

 

[jennifer]

Notophthalmus are fine down to near-freezing, and there are even reports of them being active UNDER the ice in frozen-over ponds.

 

[TJ]

Well, before I say for sure that the Cynops pyrrhogaster I saw were not active, I guess we would need to define "active".

They were hardly moving so far as I recall, but that is not to say necessarily that they were completely motionless. Still, I think I would have remembered if there had been significant motion.