Ommatriton vittatus

[caudataman]

Some shots of my Ommatriton vittatus trio...you can barely see eggs in the background plants...

 

[Bellabelloo]

Wow! that/they are stunning!...if only I had the space ..

 

[Jennewt]

Wonderful, especially the eggs! How long have you had them?

 

[caudataman]

Thanks for the praise Bel'...

I've had them for about a month Jenn, and the parents were CB by a friend of a friend. I would NOT recommend anyone buy WC vittatus should they ever surface in the pet trade again. Recent N. kaiseri concerns had me thinking back on past vittatus experiences, which is why I've stayed away from the temptation this time around...

Here's a little history lesson for the newbies... Vittatus came to the US about 6 or 7 years ago along with shipments of Salamandra, T. karelini, montandoni, alpestris alpestris, and some vulgaris. They were all WC animals and the stresses of being imported were especially hard on the vittatus. The vittatus would breed like crazy then quickly perish with large sores developing on their heads and bodies. Males got it the worst. I was part of an NY metro newt "co-op" of sorts back then who went around to a dozen or more shops in the NY/NJ/CT area and bought up all we could. No shops by me had them, so I kicked in money towards the project. The only adult I got was a post-laying female which shortly after develop the "rot spots" that consumed the others. I never saw a breeding male, they all died before I got to see them. Seeing the energy my male expends, I now understand how the import/pet trade would take too much out of them.

Thankfully the eggs were good and the larvae hardy and soon we had lots of juveniles. Morphs were much tougher to keep though, and I ended up losing mine. I strongly suspect they need drier environs than many other newtlets and will be trying that out this time. The other species had an easier time, karelini especially.

Not sure if there's a moral to this story other than re-inforcing a preference for CB animals, but then again, every CB animal has WC source somewhere in its family tree that was lucky enough to find a way to a good steward permit it to flourish and breed...

 

[ravenous]

Thanks for the history lesson, that was a good read.

I have never seen a newt like this. So by what youre saying, theyre a rare breed and fragile? If I can ask how did your friend get them? Were they rescued or lucked out through the proper channels?

I wonder how much a newt like this would cost!

 

[Bellabelloo]

Thanks for the imfo, what country do they originate from? ...I remeber when we first got terrapins into uk ( due to a cartoon invasion) many died due to lack of knowledge ( was originally suplied with a very shallow bowl with a tiny island in the middle)..we found when ours developed sores it was due to the lack of a vitamin so through trial we managed to ammend the problem then go and advise/boycott pet shops , fortunately many took the advise and the stocks were reduced/prices increased and correct tanks advised. All the best with those gorgeous guys

 

[caudataman]

Ravenous - they are more common in Europe, where they are bred more frequently. I'm not aware of any protected status beyond the typical Asian/European protection of native species thing. They are not classified as rare, threatened, or endangered if that's what you're asking. As I said, my friend got them from a friend who has apparently been breeding them for several years. Beyond that, and aside from basic care tips, I didn't ask, and out of respect to him, won't. As for fragile, we'll see...they come from a tough area in the world for a newt to live (see below). Hopefully I'll have better luck this time. As for pricing, they sold reasonably back then (under $40) but were a bit more expensive than the other species being offered at the time (which ranged from $15 to $30 as I recall). Mine are just starting to hatch and aren't for sale, though at some point, trades may be considered, but I'm getting WAY ahead of myself, as there's a long way to go between now and then. I'm trying to breed them as an extension of my hobby (if you keep things well enough, they should be comfortable enough to breed), not to make money (though I don't see anything wrong with that per se - as per David Nash's article, it IS a lot of work and some expense). My goal is a second generation breeding by me. That'll be success!

Bellabelloo - they come from Turkey and the Caucuses (Georgia, Armenia, Russia) which explains the other species that came available with them. I suspect their availablility was the result of the then recent dissolution of the Soviet Union. My efforts will be to investigate and document the optimal captive requirements and make that available to other US hobbyists so that they might be as common as alpestris and karelini are now. If there are any other keepers of this species in the US or Europe, I'd love to hear from you, so feel free to PM or email me!

 

[fishkeeper]

Wow! Great photos. I thought before this post there were no vittatus in the US hobby.

Are you aware of anyone working with wild karelinii. Most of the ones around today are descended from a group of 5 animals someone bought...I'm assuming also from this shipment. Our best guess is that they came out of Ukraine.

 

[dane_zu]

i've always found the newts with the biggest/wildest crests to be the most stunning

thanks for sharing the pictures and the story

 

[coendeurloo]

Brian, for the morphs, make sure you have totally dry and wet places for them to choose from. I have the best experiences in the cases where the newts themselves can decide where to stay. Stack some bark (dry) and peat-bricks (wet). Though I'm not sure peat-bricks is the proper name, here in Holland it's called "Turf", and we use it to build edges in the ponds. It retains water pretty well.

 

[caudataman]

Coen, Thanks for the tips. Any suggestions as to what to feed them? I'm thinking pinhead crickets. Still a long way to go as some eggs are still hatching and all the larvae are still small. These larvae are quite hardy and the larvae are taking chopped blackworms quite early. I tried to get brine hatcheries going, but didn't have any luck (my eggs were VERY old), so I started with chopped worms and they took them right away. The adult females are out of the water and the male's crest is receding. Thankfully that hurdle of the past has been cleared!

Joe, It wasn't an easy quest to find the vittatus, but it's a big country and there are a number of people who don't keep a public profile who are working with a lot of different species. As for karelini, I don't know if anyone working with new WC animals, or even locality known animals. They seem to be the easiest and hardiest animals and I suspect a lot more of them survived the late 90's Ukraine import. As I recall, Marc Staniszewski had brought some with him at the first IAD which would have probably been from a separate bloodline since that was about the same time as the big imports. Mark's animals were juveniles, the imports were adults. There could easily be g3 or g4 breedings from any of these animals. My own pair is laying eggs now, but these animals belonged to a fellow CO member and I've seen her bloodlines available elsewhere recently. I'll probably swap/sell off (always prefer swap) my pair and their offspring entirely this fall. I got them on a swap, kinda on a whim, and decided to try and breed them. They took a long time to get into the water but finally "got in the mood". They're nice enough animals and their heads kinda remind me of the original Godzilla (I dunno why, but they do...), but I need to pare down my collection again and have a number of other species I wanna try to work with...I'll try and post some photos before they stop breeding.

 

[fishkeeper]

Please do!

I haven't had experience with any other triturus, but karelinii are a lot of fun. Currently though I have only a lonely female on the market for a mate(sold/traded away her siblings).

 

[Newtility]

T.v.o. confidential

Hi all,

really nice photos of the T.v.o. These newts are stunning but often not treated properly.
I have attached a photo of my breeding male (one of three). Sadly the photo isn´t that good but I hope the newt comes better.

I am actually raising some hundred larvae which isn´t a problem as they are not cannibalistic as e.g. Crested Newts are. The only challenge is to raise the morphs and one thing about this in particular: you can not keep them too dry! If the morphs get wet they will (not may, will!) start fowling from the tail. Raise them like a lizzard with only an idea of fog occasionally and you will have best results. I use to feed them with fruitflies by putting in the entire culture with maggots and flies. This way they will grow constantly but still slow. In nature these newts are found terrestrial in bone dry habitats and even under volcanis stones. The adults as well like it dry as only few other caudates like it, e.g. Ensatina e. croceater or T. pygmaeus.

About the imports, the Banded Newts are not more sensitive to transport than any other newt but the males are stressing each other severely by hormons. These can lead to have a male not get into breeding condition at all. And when crested they will suffer from being closely together. This is what kills many males on transport and in the trade. After breeding you best isolate the males and feed them up with excellent food items. Banded Newt males get very weak from breeding and have to build up again. Best is not to put males together in breeding season but spawn them single paired with some females. Respecting this the Banded Newts will live long and do fine. They simply are unique in many respects.

Good success raising your Banded babies!

Newtility

 

[Newtility]

Better photos

Uploaded the wrong image. Taken in the breeding tank, not really brilliant but to show the males. In the mop made of acrylic wool I let all my newts spawn with great success.

Newtility

 

[caudataman]

Hi Newtility,

Thanks for the pointers! I'm glad to hear my suspiscions on keeping them drier were on track. That tail rot is pretty much what happened. My male does seem to absorb his food pretty fast and a day after eating a good size piece of nightcrawler, he is looking quite skinny again. I will be keeping them in a drier dirt set-up which had worked well with T. pygmaeus. Your newts are quite handsome! I was warned about keeping multiple males together, which is why I got 1.2 rather than a couple pair, but the male to male conflict doesn't quite explain why most of the imported females died too. I suspect that the animals in Europe had a shorter and easier trip and the benefit of keepers with more experience and resources than the US ones did.

I also am finding these larvae easy to raise compared to the T. carnifex larvae I also have. Survival rates are much better and I don't see any sign of cannibalism. My M.a.cyreni larvae are also hardy, though I do see some tail nipping signs with then...

Good luck with your efforts and I hope to hear more from you!

Brian

 

[chris_dishmon]

wow, brian! stunning animals. very beautiful, too. maybe i could trade you a couple of my tritus marm morphs for a couple of your vittatus?

 

[Newtility]

Raising crested newts larvae

Brian,

good to hear there is another breeder of the ophryticus as here in Europe there is hardly anybody.
The imports here are bad in general as well but females are usually much stronger though they have severe losses as well. But males are really weak and it must be by their hormon secretion. Females use to starve in the importer and trade and die from that as far as I have seen and been told by friends. Males will need well nutrition to recover but then will be much stronger bodied than females of the same age.

The crested newts are a pest to raise, all of them! I have very good success this year by using large tanks (100+ gals), feeding the hell into them (continuously overcrowded by food items) and sorting them out regularly by size. Thus I have many larvae on the safe side now, all leggeg up and growing, the biggest about 5-6 cm, the smallest from the same brood about 2.5 cm. This I expect to become males as the big ones in the past all turned out to be females. Banded newts are fairly easy to raise but still require masses of live food to not decrease the population actively. And they grow a lot slower than crested newts but faster than pygmaeus. And most of all their larvae are really different in body proportions from all Triturus thus supporting having being transferred into a seperate genus Ommatotriton.

Amongst my 2007 newt broods I found some leucistic larvae, 3 of ophryticus, 2 of pygmaeus. 2 resp. 1 of them are alive still and growing well. Hope to get them to and through metamorphosis to be able to breed them in the future. The larvae are all white with black eyes and I suppose "whiter" than the white carnifex I have from the italian stock from near Rome.

Steffen

 

[pamela van Drie]

Ophryticus

Brian,

good to hear there is another breeder of the ophryticus as here in Europe there is hardly anybody.
The imports here are bad in general as well but females are usually much stronger though they have severe losses as well. But males are really weak and it must be by their hormon secretion. Females use to starve in the importer and trade and die from that as far as I have seen and been told by friends. Males will need well nutrition to recover but then will be much stronger bodied than females of the same age.

The crested newts are a pest to raise, all of them! I have very good success this year by using large tanks (100+ gals), feeding the hell into them (continuously overcrowded by food items) and sorting them out regularly by size. Thus I have many larvae on the safe side now, all leggeg up and growing, the biggest about 5-6 cm, the smallest from the same brood about 2.5 cm. This I expect to become males as the big ones in the past all turned out to be females. Banded newts are fairly easy to raise but still require masses of live food to not decrease the population actively. And they grow a lot slower than crested newts but faster than pygmaeus. And most of all their larvae are really different in body proportions from all Triturus thus supporting having being transferred into a seperate genus Ommatotriton.

Amongst my 2007 newt broods I found some leucistic larvae, 3 of ophryticus, 2 of pygmaeus. 2 resp. 1 of them are alive still and growing well. Hope to get them to and through metamorphosis to be able to breed them in the future. The larvae are all white with black eyes and I suppose "whiter" than the white carnifex I have from the italian stock from near Rome.

Steffen

Yes, we also have 4 leucistic ophryticus cb 2007. They are doing fine so far. I do have quite a lot of cb 2007 Ophryticus. I find them quite easy. I do feed them hatched crickets and enchytreeen and those little white jumping things, do not know the name in english. They are too small to take those black fruitflies yet. They are doing very well.
We breed with our own CB of a couple of years ago. And yes, you cannot keep more than 1 male with a high crest in one tank. We have tried, but the most dominant one stayed in the water, the other one left.
I do not keep them too dry. One side of the tank I have dry pieces of wood, on the other side I have pieces of peat On top of the peat I have moss. This to keep the peat moist. I spray every 3 days.
In 2004 Harry and me wrote a caresheet. It is still on our homepage. www.salamanders.nl.nu
It has also been translated in english.
Pamela