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<font size="-2">The townhall of Gersfeld</font></center>
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<font size="-2">A view over Gersfeld</font></center>
Well, here's a quick overview of the Gersfeld meeting this year. I (John) was (and unfortunately still am) sick as a parrot for the weekend so I missed a lot of the lectures. However, with help from Reinder (who is a frightfully nice fellow) we have arrived at this little review into the weekend. John's text is in black and Reinder's is in <font color="808080">grey</font> (<font color="808080">gray</font> for people from the US!).
I thought the general standard of lectures was not on a par with 2000 and 2001 and this was echoed by others with whom I talked. Sunday's trading session was the largest I've seen however, with some very rare things not selling out (such as
Neurergus kaiseri).
<ul>[*]
Friday 18th October at 16:00 - Discussion of the Studbooks / Species Registers: I think the main conclusion of this was that not very much effort has gone into the studbooks as yet, and that the AG Urodela needs to take better advantage of the Internet for both its own needs and the species registers. I think we can expect to see something interesting happening to the
AG Urodela site in the near future. <LI>
Friday 18th October at 20:00 - Michael Franzen's lecture on his Animal encounters in Turkey: Michael confessed that this wasn't a new talk but as ever he presented some impressive photographs of everything from lizards to crustaceans. Speaking of which:
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<font size="-2">A crab from Michael Franzen's talk</font></center>[/list]
<ul>[*]
Saturday 19th October at 09:00 - Uwe Gerlach's talk about the genus Taricha: Uwe is possibly Europe's most experience
Taricha hobbyist. His talk was quite informative with a plethora of photographs. <font color="808080">What was really interesting were the differences in eye colour between the species</font>. <LI>
Saturday 19th October at 09:30 - Alex Kupfer's lecture on Thai amphibia: Some nice photographs of Caecilians but I thought it dragged on a bit. <LI>
Saturday 19th October at 10:00 - Max Sparreboom's "Observations of Chinese Amphibians: Cynops, Tylototriton, Batrachuperus and Rhacophorus: Probably the lecture to which I was most looking forward. Max Sparreboom speaks very clear German, which is a great help if, like me, you struggle to understand most of what's going on in the first place!
He showed some fantastic photographs of
Batrachuperus and his habitat photographs were nothing short of awe-inspiring. <font color="808080">As always a nice lecture with lots of info on several
Cynops and
Tylototriton species. Interesting was a photograph of
Cynops orphicus which looks a lot like
C. orientalis but more brown, and pictures of
Tylototriton wenxianensis.</font> <LI>
Saturday 19th October at 10:35 - Norbert Jömann's "Classification of Ranodon sibiricus based on head and tooth characteristics": There was some English in this
! Seriously though, Norbert showed us some very interesting photographs of amphibian teeth and internal head "configuration", and there was a dyed preserved example of one of these animals shown around so people could see the bone and cartilage formations very well. Perhaps a bit too scientific for most. <LI>
Saturday 19th October at 11:05 - Hartmut Greven's "How expensive is sex for Urodela?": I only saw the beginning of this because I left due to feeling bad and Reinder missed it too. Professor Greven tends to give eccentric talks but I know this was highly anticipated - sorry we missed it. Any comments on it from others who were there would be greatly appreciated. <LI>
Saturday 19th October at 14:00 - Günter Schultschik "Night of the Salamanders": <font color="808080">A nice video on what salamanders do at night and where they go. Nice images and a lot of fire sals.</font> <LI>
Saturday 19th October at 15:00 - Kurt Grossenbacher "The spawning of Salamandrina terdigitata": <font color="808080">This was one of the best I think. It had lots of info on
Salamandrina and how they were kept, how the egg laying went and what happened with the raising of the larvae which has proven quite diffiult when nearing metamorphosis. I hope this will change in the future, as more info is gathered.</font> <LI>
Saturday 19th October at 15:15 - Günter Schultschik & Burkhard Thiesmeier "Present status of the newt register": <font color="808080">The German register for how many newts and salamanders there are being kept and bred by the AG Urodela members.</font> <LI>
Saturday 19th October at 16:40 - Kai Erik Witte's "Filtration and Salamanders - Tips and practical solutions": <font color="808080">This lecture gave a lot of tips on how to filter your aquaria and there were various good methods described. Kai explained how you can easily make a filter without spending lots of money! And that’s a good thing!!</font> <LI>
Saturday 19th October at 17:00 - Franc Mutschmann's "Fungal diseases of amphibians": If memory serves, there were a lot of slides of fungal infections on various parts of the animals, and Dr. Mutschmann went into detail on what makes these organisms tick. He did talk for a long time though. <font color="808080">Dr. Frank Mutschmann gave a long but interesting lecture on what fungal diseases there are and how to prevent them, and what to do when you have fungus on one of your animals.</font> <LI>
Saturday 19th October at 17:20 - Henk Wallays' "Reproduction of Hynobius dunni": It's lectures like this that make Gersfeld so worthwhile to visit each year. Novel detailed information on relatively unknown species and their behaviour. Henk's talk and photographs were a nice supplement to his recent "Amphibians" article on the same species and he certainly piqued my interested in
Hynobius. <font color="808080">A really nice leture too on the keeping and breeding of
Hynobius dunni. Branches on the water level are really important, and the mating behaviour of this particular
Hynobius was explained. Short and very interesting - that's the way I like it.</font>
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<font size="-2">Henk describes how the
Hynobius dunni male convinces the female to lay eggs on a submerged branch</font></center>[/list]
<ul>[*]
Sunday 20th October at 09:00 - The Trading Fair: As always, there are a few surprises each year and unexpected species. It was a nice surprise to see someone selling
Neurergus strauchii barani juveniles and adults for non-exhorbitant prices (maybe other vendors will take note). There was much more space available this year and it really helped to have everything accessible, rather than the usual mad-cap crush. <font color="808080">There were a lot of newts and salamanders being sold. The program says the trading is supposed to happen on Sunday but on Friday the trunks of the cars open and various species are already being sold and traded. Some nice species that were sold were
Neurergus kaiseri,
Neuregus strauchii barani and various
Tylototriton species, including
T. kweichowensis and of course the various kinds of fire salamander. There were many more though! Always nice to see so many enthusiasts together and I hope this lives on for a long time.</font>[/list]
Here are from photos from Trading Day:
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<font size="-2">On the left, Günter Schultschik shows Patrick Steinberger what he has on offer this year, while elsewhere French, Dutch, Austrian, Spanish, Belgian, Italian and German enthusiasts inspect what's available</font></center>
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<font size="-2">Henk Wallays makes the case for Hynobius</font></center>
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<font size="-2">John Clare picks Sebastian Steinfartz' brain on
Neurergus kaiseri (photo Reinder Haar)</font></center>
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<font size="-2">Peter Umminger once again shows why he's Mr.
Tylototriton</font></center>
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<font size="-2">Worth their weight in gold?</font></center>
(Message edited by admin on October 24, 2002)
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