Female courting male?

[slowfoot]

Okay, this is not really a 'help' question, but it probably doesn't deserve to be in any of the advanced sections.

Yesterday, I noticed my male Notophthalmus courting the two females. Both females seemed interested (very interested) and followed him around the tank. Eventually, he put down one spermatophore and one of the females picked it up, though they both seemed to be competing for it. This morning, the female that picked up the spermatophore laid an egg. Fastest courtship and laying I've ever seen!

Even weirder, though: the female that did not get the spermatophore is now showing courtship behavior towards both the male and the other female. The male seems interested in her, but he's not really showing any courtship behavior towards her, himself. Instead, he's spent all morning trying to amplex the other female.

I've never seen them do this before. And I've never seen them go from nothing to egg laying so fast! Any ideas what's going on?

 

[Azhael]

I´m not enterily sure if egg laying normally starts so soon after mating, but bare in mind there´s a chance she had already picked up another spermatophore before.
The female courting the others, may just be defensive behaviour....it´s just a though though. I´ve seen my dobrogicus female display "courtship" behaviour when she was trying to tell the male to leave her alone(i know this because the male had just bitten her). Maybe your female is too tired of mating and wants the male to give her a rest.

 

[slowfoot]

It's totally possible that she picked one up while I wasn't looking. However, I've been watching them pretty closely during the last couple of weeks, and I hadn't seen any courtship behavior at all.

I'm not sure it's aggression-related: she's the one following him around. In past years, my male newt has gotten extremely aggressive with the females, and I've ended up putting him in his own place after days and days of constant courtship. Right now, though, he's extremely mellow.

Anyway, I know female courtship behavior isn't that unusual. I've just never seen any of my females do it before.

 

[lilsoul]

Try getting another male I had to do that with mine the females where all over the one male I have they seemed to calm down once I put the oyher male in with them.

 

[slowfoot]

Thanks for the advice! I don't think I could find another male of this species even if I wanted to. I guess he's just going to have to deal with his annoying tankmates.

Actually, she's calmed down a lot since yesterday. And Mr. Newt has grown his tail quite a bit in just a couple of days. I'm sure he'll become the annoying one soon