Pachyhyrobius shangchengensis

[jon]

Anyone have any info on captive care of P.shangchengensis? also adult size and feeding?

Thanks

 

[ralf]

Hi Jon,
adult Pachyhynobius shangchengensis may reach total lengths of up to 19 cm. Genders are easy to distinguish because males have a characteristic head-shape. Unfortunately, there is not much info on the captive care of this species. The animals seem to be totally aquatic, at least that's what I`ve experienced, heard from others and read. The animals and especially the males are quite aggressive. Aggressive behavior even increases in spring and fall. Bite marks can be observed quite often, animals recover from seemingly heavy injuries miraculously fast, though. One has to keep pairs separately or provide a large tank with lots of hiding places (even then fights will occur). The animals will stay a lot in hiding and individual animals seem to favor their own special shelters (territorial behavior?).
It seems that a strong current is not necessary, but some current from a filter seems to raise the activity level of the animals.
They will feed on almost anything they can devour and also on smaller organisms. I have used different kinds of earthworms, white worms and even frozen bloodworm to feed them. They almost go crazy, whenever I give them Gammarids (which always take some effort catching) and are very active hunting them down in the tank. Despite of the size of the animals their mouth opening is rather small and they might have difficulties feeding on large nightcrawlers.
Hope this helps.

Ralf

 

[ralf]

Oops, forgot to mention that they're stream-dwellers. For further reading:
THORN & RAFFAELLI 2001: Les salamandres de l'ancien monde
p. 124 - 125 (in French)

 

[jon]

Thanks alot ralph. They sound like an interesting species!

Jon