Newt interaction

[jesper]

I was wondering a little about why some newts seem to be more open to interaction than others.
My limited experience with paramesotriton(fuzhongensis, caudopunctatus) tells me that this genus hunts by smell rather than by vision. My Tylototriton verrucosus, cynops orientalis, triturus pygmaeus and cynops ensicauda ensicauda seems to hunt by vision.

It seems to me that the species that hunt by vision have easier to associate me with food while the "smellers" just don't associate me with food without an active effort. Actually the smellers seem rather oblivious to my presence at large. Even if I pat them they sit still...(when they are in the way when I clean the tank I tend to test their patience like this) Frozen by fear you say?

The boundary seems to be poking, if I poke them they'll swim away or if having a really lazy day just turn the head and stare me down when I keep cleaning their tank

My pleurodeles waltl seemed to be smellers to, major problems finding food instantly and swallowing anything that smelled of food - like tails of their buddies with a bloodworm on it etc.
The pleuros were pretty much oblivious to my presence too.

The vision oriented newts have drawbacks though, if you move them around much they tend to run from you instead of to you

I've had this experience mostly with very small morphs, I guess they arent so prone to associate food with positive emotions as the bigger hungrier newts are.

I guess it is two kinds of interaction, the smellers accept more passive interaction while the vision óriented ones can stare you down from the other side of the room and try to climb out of the tank to say hi. But than again the visionaries(hehe) are just pimpin' for food.

It would be awfully nice to know if you have similar experiences.

 

[benjamin]

I beg to differ. My Cynops orientalis are smell hunters, though I won't disagree with the statement you made about Paramesotriton. My C. orientalis seem to be frightened of anything that moves.

 

[joseph]

Yeah, C. o seem to be smellers. They do have limited vision, but I think what you may be seeing is the sensitivity of the lateral line. These guys can sometimes be surprisingly reactive to something liek a hand or net coming to snatch them and beat a quick downward retreat.

 

[pamela]

My c.orientalis always seem to notice me, even from afar. A couple of them follow me around their tank. One of them, (Ivana), just can't keep her eyes off of me! Seemingly very interested in saying "hi" to me, although I know I'm just the Pavlov bell. Still, I am flattered!

 

[jesper]

Yeah, I experience that they have pretty good vision too and are sensitive to movement from a pretty long distance.

 

[benjamin]

My newts swim away when I near the tank.

 

[chris]

Perhaps it has to do with the amount of time they see you, and how long they have been incaptivity and how you feed them. For instance, I brought the smallest of my Hynobius dunni in from the garden shed to allow him to grow throughout the winter and catch up with the others. The rest are still very shy, and associate me with danger NOT food, but the indoors one, which was once like the others, has now begun to associate me with food.

Also, I think that temperaments can be changed by traumatic events - eg. when I transferred my Paramesotriton fuzhongensis to a larger tank, I lost their 'trust' when I caught them and put theminto the larger setup. They now associate me with danger again, and no longer with food.
'Tameness' also definately varies with hunger - the hungrier a newt, the more willing it is to stay near to a hand etc.
Chris

 

[henk]

I don't entirely agree with T. verucosus hunting on vision , they do by day, but I give them axolotl pellets at the falling of the evening and they have no difficulty finding and eating them in a very short time. I have the impression that they mainly hunt on smell at night and mainly on vision by day
By the way alot of my salamanders do find and eat those pellets.

 

[rose]

I've always found C. orientalis to be really shy, but my Pachytriton labiatus can be really active when it comes to feeding and interaction. After a heavy feeding, it will disappear for a day or two, but then once it's hungry again, it will run out from under its driftwood as soon as I enter the room. Particularly at night, it is often quite willing to come out of hiding and search for food in front of me. My C. orientalis would never do that, although I had some Japanese fire bellies that were more aggressive.

 

[benjamin]

Well now after disagreeing with the statement that C. orientalis were sight hunters, I've going to disagree with the statement that paramesotriton are smell hunters. Today during feeding one of my mystery paras lunged out of the water and bit a worm out of my hand, it didn't jump very far and was all ready near the surface before it went for it but there was no way as far as I could tell that it could have smelled the worm.

 

[jesper]

I didn't mean to say that any species only hunt by either of the two senses, only that they use for example smell to a higher extent than than vision.
When it comes to my orientalis:
I keep mine terrestrial, they are very shy. They are aware of ones presence very quickly therefore I believe they have good vision.I don't know about orientalis though, they seem to have good vision but they are reluctant to handfeed. Maybe they have good vision but still hunt more by smell? One of my orientalis handfeeds but the rest do not.

The verrucosus on the other hand notice you very quick and handfeed with no problem.

My P.fuzhongensis do not handfeed at all, they don't seem to notice the whole worms I dangle in front of them until they are extremely close. Bloodworms on the other hand attracts them fast and those should smell a lot more than a whole worm.
My C.ensicauda(easy) and my T.pygmaeus(eventually) did handfeed even though the pygmaeus were very shy.

There's of course the temperament issue i.e. the difference between a newt/sal that is too shy to handfeed and one that do not understand that food is served. But isn't it quite easy to differentiate the two?

It would be quite nice with observations on differences in hunting behaviour terrestrailly/aquatically and day/night!

 

[mark]

My pleuros are remarkably sensitive to external stimulus. They work themselves into a frenzy whenever I go near the tank. During feeding they get so excited that the males will amplex females and forget they should be eating! When in this frenzied state smell is not an issue - they just grab whatever is in front of their mouth and will happily attack empty tweezers. I guess a lot of it is down to conditioning and individuals. Maybe mine were sharks in a former life....

 

[benjamin]

Ah my paras went for my hands this time they don't have sharp teeth but the force behind those jaws is amazing.

 

[jeffrey]

My pleuros associate me with food, they swim to the near side of the tank any time I walk in the room, but they are poor at grabbing their food. Lunging several times before successfully latching on to their earth worm somedays.

My Cynops Orientalis appear to me to have very good vision and have homed in on bloodworm across the length of the tank. Most of them are not bothered by my presence either and have to be physically moved sometimes to facilitate cleaning, unless of course they are wanting to ride the water chute. They all look up when I approach their tank. I will say they are captive bred and have had heaps of attention from the first day they arrived in case anyone wishes to make comparison.

 

[joseph]

My wild caught ones(but are long term captives) hang around the front of the tank when theyare hungry. However, I believe it is smell that causes them to come bursting through clumps of hair algae, moss, and java fern to grab live blackworms at one random corner of the tank.

 

[jesper]

Hmm, my Paramesotriton fuzhongensis have refused to eat worms(E.hortensis)since I got them a year ago - It has been really annoying since I have to feed bloodworms(i.e. red mosquito larvae) and leftovers are a pain in the <font color="ff0000">&#149;</font><font color="ff0000">&#149;</font><font color="ff0000">&#149;</font>.
I decided to give the worms another try today, just after I put in some bloodworms. I have observed that the smell of bloodworms tend to get them more sensitive to movement. If I put in a worm without any bloodworms they won't even look at it. When the blood worms were present they went for the worms directly, reacting to its movements from a distance. It seems that smell turns on their hunting instinct, once excited they seem to hunt on vision only roughly homing in on smell.

An annoying thing I noticed over a long period was that the P.fuzhongensis smelled the bloodworms, homed in on them and then just sat in the middle of a pile seeming to wait for something. They could sit there for quite some time before finally eating some bloodworm. I got annoyed and tried to stir up some bloodworms with a stick the other day when one of the guys started striking out towards the stick....Then I understood.