Mixing species with the same natural habitat

[stavroske]

At this point, I only read one good point. The point of Mark about the agressive feedingtime. For the rest the answers could not convince me about why it shouldn't be done. If you put for example L. helveticus and L. vulgaris together, I don't think it would cause any trouble. The fact of biting off limbs is not a mather of diffend species but newts feeding together. If you want to avoid that, you should keep any individual apart and only put them together to breed. I don't think that the L.helveticus is going to bite a limb of a L vulgaris because he's not the same. Or it should be a rascist L. helveticus...
Please convince me with facts...

 

[stavroske]

From the moment I asked this question, I got the feeling that people are almost sure that I have the intention off mixing some species. Please know that L. helveticus or L. vulgaris are not in my wanted-list and I'm not planned to keep them. This is just a question where I would like to here facts. Not answers like 'it just shouldn't' or 'I heard that someone' or 'I have 20years experience' from someone who has no actual answers. I'm not the kind of guy who believes everything they say without knowing that this person have experience in it or have actual facts.
Asking this question does not mean that I plan to mix! If I ask the question if salamanders could survive without limbs, it doesn't mean that I'm planned to cut off there limbs...
Please answer with facts that can't be ignored.

Kind regards,

Steven

 

[Azhael]

I´m done with this discussion. It´s been done way too many times.
The amount of experience and anecdotes on this subject is astonishing, and the points made in this thread are in my opinion very very hard to ignore.
If you wish to do so, it´s your problem. Good luck trying to find better facts...

 

[stavroske]

I´m done with this discussion. It´s been done way too many times.
The amount of experience and anecdotes on this subject is astonishing, and the points made in this thread are in my opinion very very hard to ignore.
If you wish to do so, it´s your problem. Good luck trying to find better facts...

At salamanders.nl someone pointed a good fact, which I wasn't aware off. Lissotriton ssp can hybridize and mixing Lissotriton with ichthyosauria alpestris could cause some trouble during feeding ( as Mark said before). Mixing species from the same habitat isn't a good Idea. Triturus can't be combined with Lissotriton or ichthyosauria because off the size difference. These answers are ones that can convince me.

Kind regards,

Steven

 

[Azhael]

You have those and many other answers a click away in this forum...as we said, this has been discussed at length several times, a quick search would have given you your answers.

 

[stavroske]

You have those and many other answers a click away in this forum...as we said, this has been discussed at length several times, a quick search would have given you your answers.

I could only find questions like " housing differend firebellies" "housing firesalamander with tigersalamander" "housing salamanders with toads" " triturus x with triturus z" and things like that. Didn't find anything about mixing species of the same natural ponds.
I think it's very sad that you cannot ask a question without getting the feeling off beeing accused that you don't put the wellness off your animals at the first place. I had to say about 3 times that it was not my intention to mix, that it was just a question. Didn't find this question in any topic, so if you want you may always show me the other topics where I could find the answers.

Kind regards,

Steven

 

[Abrahm]

To clarify, I wasn't asking you why you in particular wanted to mix salamanders. I was asking specific questions to provoke some critical thinking. Is there any reason to mix salamanders? If you, as someone that seems less biased towards mixing species, can't come up with any convincing reasons to mix then why do it?

This topic has been revisited, discussed and argued about ad nauseum. With little change in the arguments we present (as anti-species-mixers) and the refutations by the pro mixers. The threads on the forum may not deal with your exact, specific case but I'm sure that you can take those threads that are close and infer from them the necessary information?

Hybridization, stress brought on by territoriality, competition over food and hides, accidental or aggressive injuries, pathogens, added difficulty in monitoring diet and behavior, opportunistic feeding upon eggs/larvae. Hell, the very fact that they share habitat in the wild may cause them to be stressed when they cannot engage in normal flight/fight behaviors due to the tiny confines of artificial enclosures. All of these reasons are on the forum.

Yes, this place strives to be as helpful as possible. There is only so much that we can do as members to make information available and everyone has some responsibility for finding and processing their own data. I was asking you to take on a little of that responsibility.

 

[Aimee]

Hmmm…seems like things have gotten a little heated here. You know what I like to do when my feathers get ruffled? I like to go get ice cream. Ice cream always makes things better… :tongue:

Having said that, I’d like to point out that I am the least experienced newt keeper here. But even so, I thought I’d try and throw in my 2 cents…

Several, here, have already given some great answers. All of which really come down to doing your research: knowing your species, their natural habitats and ecosystems, behaviors, breeding, feeding, etc.

I think it can be done properly, but only after extensive research and years of experience. Even then, at the end of the day there will always be that “mystery” factor: those elements/components that no amount of research can account for. Some factors we do know have already been brought into light (hybridization, feeding aggression, seasonal breeding behaviors, predation, size differences, toxins, etc). But what about those factors we don’t know? Those elements that, though not immediately evident, could have long term repercussions? Is it worth risking the health (or even lives) of your newts to find out? No captive setting can imitate the vast complexities of a natural ecosystem.

As Johnny likes to say: “When in doubt, leave it out!” When it comes to housing different species in the same enclosure, unless you have years of experience and scrupulous research under your belt, there will always be a certain level of doubt.

As Abrahm said, without a legitimate reason to do so, it seems somewhat hazardous to mix species together with so many unknowns in the equation.

And as I said, I am just a novice at keeping caudates. So please refer to the experts before taking my advice to heart.

Well, I’ve reached my typing quota for the day. What do you say we all drop what we’re doing and go get some ice cream now? :wacko:

 

[stavroske]

To clarify, I wasn't asking you why you in particular wanted to mix salamanders. I was asking specific questions to provoke some critical thinking. Is there any reason to mix salamanders? If you, as someone that seems less biased towards mixing species, can't come up with any convincing reasons to mix then why do it?

This topic has been revisited, discussed and argued about ad nauseum. With little change in the arguments we present (as anti-species-mixers) and the refutations by the pro mixers. The threads on the forum may not deal with your exact, specific case but I'm sure that you can take those threads that are close and infer from them the necessary information?

Hybridization, stress brought on by territoriality, competition over food and hides, accidental or aggressive injuries, pathogens, added difficulty in monitoring diet and behavior, opportunistic feeding upon eggs/larvae. Hell, the very fact that they share habitat in the wild may cause them to be stressed when they cannot engage in normal flight/fight behaviors due to the tiny confines of artificial enclosures. All of these reasons are on the forum.

Yes, this place strives to be as helpful as possible. There is only so much that we can do as members to make information available and everyone has some responsibility for finding and processing their own data. I was asking you to take on a little of that responsibility.

Hey Abrahm,

In fact I'm against mixing to. I read enough and have a clear mind to realize that some mixing should never be done. But the previous called facts that were made weren't facts that only appear caused by mixing but most of the time are caused by keeping to many individuals in a to small tank. I mean things like feedingcompetition, hidingcompetition, etc... Even the fact of pathogens does not always have to be a mixing problem and can occure even in the same species from differend breeders. That's the reason why I refuded them as convincing answers. As I wrote, I find questions about mixing species from differend countries or species with differend size which is a big difference to my question. Some people have given me some good answers which I'm very thankfull off. I even got some very interesting information (on salamanders.nl) which I would never think it could happen! A forum is a place to learn, discus and share information. I'm glad that they exist.
Thank you guys to get into discussion with me
Kind regards,

Steven

 

[Azhael]

I realize how this discussion got a bit too heated at a pojnt, and i apologize for that. You have to realize, that as has been said several times, this is a topic that has been discussed to exhaustion. As a consequence whenever it appears again, many of us get a little annoyed.

You can find many interesting points in this thread:
http://www.caudata.org/forum/f1-gen...ussion-news-members/61510-species-mixing.html
I didn´t bring it up before because i thought you had already read it.

I would like to repat once again that the big problem with mixing is the fact that it invariably comes with risks. Wether one wants to take a chance on those risks or not is up to the individual, but in a forum such as this, where we keep caudates for a hobby, it´s important to realize, that people who take unnecessary risks are not seen with kind eyes. After all what we care about the most here is the well-being of the animals, and unnecesary risks contribute nothing to that.

 

[stavroske]

I realize how this discussion got a bit too heated at a pojnt, and i apologize for that. You have to realize, that as has been said several times, this is a topic that has been discussed to exhaustion. As a consequence whenever it appears again, many of us get a little annoyed.

You can find many interesting points in this thread:
http://www.caudata.org/forum/f1-gen...ussion-news-members/61510-species-mixing.html
I didn´t bring it up before because i thought you had already read it.

I would like to repat once again that the big problem with mixing is the fact that it invariably comes with risks. Wether one wants to take a chance on those risks or not is up to the individual, but in a forum such as this, where we keep caudates for a hobby, it´s important to realize, that people who take unnecessary risks are not seen with kind eyes. After all what we care about the most here is the well-being of the animals, and unnecesary risks contribute nothing to that.

Hey Azhael,

The topic you placed is a topic as I said that are very common. Mixing Cynops with Notho's is not the kind of mixing I was talking about... Especially that (!) was my point. Read this topic again and notice that I was not talking about the common question of mixing species from differend countries or differend continent but about species that share the same ponds in our gardens. That's a totally differend question, so please keep an eye on that and try to understand why I asked this question. In fact it's pretty interesting for people to know that they shouldn't even combinate species out off there pond in an aquarium. In my point off vieuw this topic is not the same as all the rest of "mixing-topics"

Cheers,

Steven

Edit: When I see topics like "can I mix Pleurodeles with Pachitriton" I don't even get started reading it. It might be true that there are a few very interesting points in that topic, but I really don't like such kind off discussions. In my eyes you shouldn't even think about mixing species of differend habitats, countries, continents,... so I just don't read it.

 

[Azhael]

If you read the entire thread you will find out that although the original topic is about mixing Notophthalmus and Cynops, the thread explores general mixing in depth.
Anyway as Abrahm says, just because a particular thread is not exactly about the situation you want it to be, it doesn´t mean you can´t infer information and results from it.

 

[freves]

To add to the point of aggressivness during feeding I recently had a Tylototriton shanjing suffer a serious attack by another in the group. This particular group has been together for around five years now and this is a first. The right forearm was completly missing and the remaining section as well as the shoulder area were mauled so badly that bones were visible. In addition the chest region was extremely edematous. I did not witness the attack but since there are no other animals in the enclosure but the shanjings it had to come from a cagemate. To be honest I had little hope that the individual would survive and I started to just put it down, thinking of the incredible pain that it must be feeling. For whatever reason however I decided to play doctor and cleaned the wound daily followed by application of silvadeen cream. To my surprise the little fellow responded very well to this treatment and has since made a full recovery, minus a forearm.
Chip

 

[Azhael]

Same experience here but more surprisingly with L.vulgaris! You wouldn´t expect this species to be agressive at all, let alone cause serious damage, but one day i found one of my males with one leg hanging by a thin thread of tissue. The bone was completely visible, and the wound had clearly been caused by agression. At first i panicked because although i had experienced this with larvae, i had never seen it with adults and the wound was trully savage.
I decided to cut the leg just above the damaged area with sterilized scissors, and today the newt has a half-way regenerated limb and is as healthy as ever.

This comes to proof that certain risks are pretty much unavoidable...but others are.

 

[fishkeeper]

FosterReves: Hmmm....Tylotriton lack regenerative abilities?

I notice a lot of people mention the fact that it is a selfish desire that causes us to want to mix species. Well, it is a selfish desire which causes us to keep newts in the first place.(and, heck, do most of the things we do) I would ask please to stop with this and please keep things civil without personal attacks, implied or otherwise(my apologies if this is in fact no the case!). That being said, this indeed be hashed out many times. However, I haven't seen any posts reflecting this particular question. Many good points on mixing two newts that do naturally occur together have been made in this thread.

This all being said, the needs of the animals should be first and foremost. If these are not unduly affected by mixing then I do not see a problem with it. If someone figured out two compatible species that naturally share habitat, had a large enclosure, fed them naturally in a way to prevent frenzying behavior(easily done in large tanks), provided land/water areas for possible seclusion if necessary...and made sure all the animals were well taken care of and that any risks are kept to a minimum, I see nothing wrong with it. It might even give (admittantly blurred)insight on how the two species partition the resources in the wild. Many risks are just as feasible in single species enclosures. In truth if we wanted to minimize risk we would be keeping our newts individually to prevent any feeding bites, autoclave all the worms they are fed, shower and put on lab clothes/booties before going into the newt room, and take fecal samples to the vet every week. Every animal kept in captivity faces a certain risk of death based on actions taken or not taken by the hobbyist. Mixing may(or, perhaps, may not) unduly increase those chances.