Is there a ?thumbprint? for caudata?

Y

yago

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I am wondering if there is any way to identify caudata to prove legal C/B.
The belly patters of some newts change with age, but those this happen with all European species? Exist any other methods of providing a kind of universal “thumbprint or ID” for newts and salamanders? Chips are too hostile and still too big for juveniles and I am wondering if anybody has any idea to sort out this matter. May be the iris patterns?
Quite an interesting theme, isn’t it?
 
Yago, can you please not use capital letters for all of the letters in your subjects? Thank you.
 
That is a really interesting answer… just joking. I won’t use them anymore. I had no idea that this formal aspect was not permitted or criticised. Apart from that, any suggestion or comment on the matter?
 
Field studies have used belly patterns to identify crested newts (as I mentioned elsewhere) over long periods of time- even if the pattern changed, it was usually similar enough to identify the individual. I can give you a reference for a paper on this if you want.

Other methods I've heard of for field studies include toe clipping, dye injection (tattooing, basically) and cutting out sections of belly skin and grafting them back in opposed positions (e.g. swapping black and yellow sections of skin). I'm not sure I'd want to do any of these on my captives, personally. I think I have papers on these, as well.

Hope that helps.
 
Hi Yago,

You can also use dorsal (or lateral) color patterns for identifying individuals if the belly/throat isn't distinctive enough. With any color pattern you'll have to take several pics during the ontogeny.

Of course, DNA fingerprinting would be possible/suitable but it's still too expensive for routine application.

All the other options mentioned (with the possible exception of dye injection) are too short-lived or risky for ID purposes. Even adult newts won't like transponders - all amphibia are exempt from tagging in Germany (we have pretty strict species conservation laws here).

Best wishes,
kai
 
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