Love is in the air

[mark]

First this way....

Then that way....

And the results of this activity....

 

[jeff]

Nice one Mark. Your Ribbies are top-notch!

 

[mark]

A few days on. I wish I had a macro lense...

 

[justin]

Nice photos.

I'm jealous...I'd love to have P. waltl eggs right now!

 

[pin-pin]

congratulations Mark!

Start saving pennies, quarters, dollars to feed your new additions to the family.

 

[mark]

Thanks Pin-pin. I'm going to try the low cost "pond water" method first. My pond is still well stocked with micro beasties which'll save on the daphnia food bill.

It's a shame you arn't within easy posting distance Justin. Many have been eaten by the adults and I still have around 80 left which I've now separated out... lots of mouths to feed!

 

[kevin]

Nice animals how old are they because I think the female is a little bit small. And I have also some animals of 9 Months that are in amplexus.

 

[mark]

I'm not sure exactly how old she is Kevin - I'm guessing 8 or 9 months post morphing. I watched her laying so I know it was that individual. Certain they were duds on account of her age and size I left them to be eaten but they were fertile... sexually mature at 9 months (or less?), seems peculiar but clearly possible. The male is 5-6 years approx - maybe he likes a younger woman?

 

[justin]

How large is the female? One of my primary attractions to this species is it's size.

 

[mark]

The male in the photo is 22-23cm. Females get larger but the one in the photo is very young and only 13cm. Many years ago I had a 30cm female.

 

[christian]

Mine are still doing the same thing since august, I am breeding 25 young pleuro's right now

 

[justin]

Oh, the irony of it! All you folks having such success with breeding, but so far away! I guess these guys are easy to get in most European countries?

 

[kevin]

I think so.

 

[mark]

The first few have flown the nest at about 7-8mm. No front legs yet.
Justin these are probably the most inexpensive and widely available newt species in the UK on account of ease of breeding and the large numbers of eggs produced. I guess the rest of Europe is the same.

 

[rob]

Justin, it is even worse!

There are that much pleurodeles in the Netherlands at the moment that we don't know how to get rid of our offspring.

Most of the people that own breeding groups of them don't even take the eggs out of their enclosure anymore.

At the meeting day of the dutch salamandergroup, there were lots of pleuro's, but nobody wanted to buy one. Everybody already owns pleuro's...

strange, isn't it?

 

[justin]

I guess it kinda makes sense considering the correlation between popularity and availability... Are wild populations fairly stable? They seem to be so hardy in captivity that I was wondering how they fair compared to other European species?