Sleep Over?

M

mark

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What's so special about this log? I know they arn't sociable animals but they do like to hang out together at times. I know it's hard to tell from the photo but the female in the middle looks a tad on the large size... gravid or just greedy?

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<font size="-2">(I promise to get a better digital camera!)</font>
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Very nice pictures...Some healthy looking animals. What do you regularly feed the adults? Standard fare (worms etc.)?
 
Hi Justin - Well, they eat just about anything that moves and fits in their mouths, but they are very shy and timid. I've never managed to get mine to tweezer feed and they tend to back away from anything placed in front of their face. I keep their enclosure stocked with worms, slugs, woodlice and small spiders. Occasionally I throw in some crickets (quite popular), mealworms and waxworms. I very rarely see one eat but they must do ok because they are never thin.
 
Thanks for the info...That's what I figured. I have about a dozen larvae that are going to be morphing in a few months and I've been considering food items for them.

Has there been any new reports on people being able to breed this species? Just curious. I often wonder if it could be done outside in a semi-captive enclosure?
 
Typically when you see this happening, the conditions under the other hides are less than optimum or there are insufficient hide areas available.
Typically, the resident for the hide will prevent the other animals from rooming with it.
I would be very surprised if you had a female yolking up at this time of the year. Yolking typically occurs in the spring after a period of at least 45 F.
I am unaware at this time any breeding of any maculatum that were not collected from the pond or were maintained year round inside.

Ed
 
Well Ed, I would normally agee with you but the enclosure has about 8ft of surface area with a ratio of 2 hides per animal and similar conditions in each. Bunking up with others is not necessary and not normal in my experience. I have on occasions seen 2 animals per hide but not three. I recently removed a hide which has possibly caused some disruption in their distribution within the enclosure.
I agree that yolking is unlikely. I will attempt to breed then next spring so any info on failed efforts would be gladly received.

(Message edited by aartse_tuyn on July 23, 2005)
 
Hi Mark,

Similar conditions in each location does not mean that the conditions in each site are optimum in the opinion of the salamanders. Given that in the wild the spotteds would typically defend the hides (in that case a burrow) from one another, finding them under the same location should be considered a sign of an aberrant behavior and an indication that conditions in the other locations are not optimal.

Ed

(Message edited by Ed on July 23, 2005)
 
Thanks Ed, that raises the question of what are optimum conditions for A.maculatum? If all my hides share identical physical elements - e.g same topsoil, same leaf litter, bark hides, moss etc and have common environmental conditions eg. humidity, moisture, temperature and light, what would make one more optimal than an other? smell? prey availability? Maybe in a captive setting where prey is abundant and "burrows" are provided they become less defensive?

The 3 in photo above are still in the same hide so I will experiment by physically placing them each in new hide and see what happens.
 
Hi Mark,
There are a lot of factors that can change the attractivness of a hide area that we may no tbe able to readily measure in the microenviroment provided by the hide, humidity, temperature, pH of the substrate, moisture content of the substrate, amount of disturbance (looking under the hide, etc) and/or amount of light penetrating into the hide are some that come to mind right away. (it may not be one factor but several). Any time I notice that for one reason or another a territorial animal is huddling together, this indicates that there is some stressor acting on the animals that is out weighing the territorialdrive and should be considered an indicator of potential problems.

Ed
 
I removed all the animals, put them in a hat and shook them around...(joke), and randomly placed them in individual hides throughout the enclosure. 24 hours on and they are all still in their respective hides. I suppose conclusions can't be drawn until much later - say, a months time and even if they still remain solitary then I'm not sure what to summise from it. Maybe the cable broke..
smile6.gif


On another matter - you mention 45 F being required for a period if breeding is to be considered. What would be the length of this period be in their natural range? I'm guessing (and hoping) similar to that of a winter in the UK, going by latitude.
 
Hi Mark,
The 45 F is from my experience (over 7 years of attempting) to get them to breed...


In the wild, it is possible that they could get colder depending on where they are sitting in relation to the frost line (the depth to which the ground can freeze), if they are above it temps can run into the low 30s and if they are below it, temps could be anywhere from mid 30s to low 50s.
The other item is that the trigger for the migration to the breeding sites is still unknown (amd is seperate from yolking/ cloacal development and appears to be hard to trigger in wc adults. (I am not aware of any attempts at this time with captive reared offspring). I have gone as far as placing the yolked females into a 100% water enclosure with cycled males to no avail. The adults readily adapted to the aquatic existance for a month before showing signs that they wanted to leave the water and the closest I got was some cycling behavior from two of the males.

Ed
 
Thanks for that Ed, very interesting.

Finding that trigger sure would help. I plan to place mine in a frost free outhouse in the autumn where they will spend 3-4 months at between 30-50F and then put them outside as the spring arrives - cheating perhaps? Did you keep your's indoors throughout? The trigger may be something hard to re-create indoors such as a specific rise in temp, a precise amount of rainfall or even something more subtle like algal blooming.
 
Hi Mark,
I did indeed keep them inside year round. The cue has to be something that penetrates into the burrows where they typically live.

Ed
 
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