Paedomorphic C. ensicauda

I don't know how she compares to the others but maybe it is time to put a young male in and see what happens? It is 3-4 years of age by now correct?

Between yours and Jenn's it seems we have quite a few paedomorphs or potential ones running around!
 
Yeah, I think she's over 3 years old now. When you asked how she was doing, I moved her from her algae-covered tank into another ensicauda tank just to take some pictures, but then I decided to leave her there and free up a tank by doing so (she previously had her own 10-gallon with no tankmates). She's an ensicauda popei as far as I know (if not a popei/pyrrhogaster mix
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) and the newts in this tank are nominate ensicauda, so I'm not sure if I'll leave her in there or move her to a popei tank. Lets see what happens. I'll put you at the top of my egg recipient list for the interest you've shown
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Thanks for your interest, Peter. The animal is fine but hasn't grown much if at all since say the middle of last year, and it's now in a tank with adults (hoping something will happen there). I took a decent series of photos about a month ago and am trying to find them to post here
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Just wondering, seeing as it appears to be a new animal, have you decided on a name for the new "species"?
 
It's not a new species. It's a paedomorphic Cynops ensicauda. Paedomorphism doesn't constitute species differentiation.
 
As promised:

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Which species of adults is it with C.ensicauda or C.pyrrhogastar.
 
It's believed to be a Cynops ensicauda popei. I say "believed to be" because there is a very slight chance of it being a cross-breed since it was among larvae removed from a tank that had both C. ensicauda popei and C. pyrrhogaster in it. Going by size (when it was a developing larva) and morphology, there's no chance of it being a C. pyrrhogaster, at least in my opinion.

It's now being kept in a tank with C. ensicauda ensicauda, not C. ensicauda popei -- but for no particular reason
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It feeds normally and doesn't appear to be at all intimidated by the larger newts. Still, I've been advised to keep it separately -- just to be on the safe side. Indeed I used to keep it separately, but I thought I'd give it a shot at breeding. What I perhaps should do is give it its own tank again, and simply introduce a single C. ensicauda popei male (assuming as I do that it's a female).

Maybe I'll get around to it this weekend. Thanks for spurring me to action by reopening this thread
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Thanks for the update Tim! What I find quite interesting is how promiment the pores on its head(I'm assuming part of the lateral line system) are. Have you reported this to any higher ups interested?
 
This is definitely an animal to envy.
I´ve seen that neotenic individuals in other species obviously have a different shape specially in the head. But this one is from another planet...
Any idea why it´s head is so different? particularly the lips.

anyway...amazing creature Tim. Best of lucks with breeding it.
 
I've thought about this animal quite a bit in the last few years. Every body feature makes sense to me but the flattened head is a mystery.

There is one possible explanation which springs to mind. This animal may have a distinctly unusual hormonal problem(s), which has led to its paedmorphism. This problem or problems may be different to those found in species who more regularly undergo paedmorphism (paedmorphism is generally a product of hormone regulation changes, suppression of a certain hormone or more than one of those involved in growth triggers).

If we accept this as true, this animal may not be what a typical Cynops ensicauda would look like because the cause of its paedomorphism is distinctly different to the usual cause of paedmorphism.

This hormonal problem could have influenced the shape of the head during development, as well as inducing paedmorphism. Since there are no known (correct me if I'm wrong Tim) paedmorphs of this species, it seems likely to me that paedomorphism in this specimen is not due to the traditional causes of paedomorphism.

All just hypothesis, but a possibility nonetheless.
 
Well....neotenic individuals in other species have a different head shape and body than they´re normal pals. If this is the only specimen known of this species...then we just don´t know if it looks like a normal neotenic one or not...we just have nothing to compare with.
But i agree this one is kind of different....may it be a normal case of paedomorphism, or not this animal is special.
has it always had the same head shape Tim??? Maybe if it´s just something that developed with age it can mean something.
For what i´ve seen (no expert at all though...correct me if i´m wrong which is highly possible) neotenic ones tend to have a very similar head to normal old larvae. It´s pretty much the colour what changes not the shape. So if this one changed after having a normal shaped larvae head, then you have something really..really..weird here..
 
As I look back at previous pics the odd head shape doesn't seem as prominent when it was younger could it be something with it's age. Also how is the breeding attempt working out Tim.
- Pete
 
Tim J. said I could post this recent photo to update the status of this unique animal, which is still alive and well.
 

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Looking good! Do normal popei ever get tails that long?
 
No, the tail length is totally abnormal for ensicauda.
 
AW: Re: Paedomorphic C. ensicauda

So, now this paedomorphic Cynops ensicauda popei is five years old ... ?

Paul
 
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