Taricha eggs

[russ]

I found about 25 of these clusters in a small pool near San Ramone. I'm going to guess that they are granulosa since there was an adult one near them.

RUSS

 

[nate]

Those are torosa egg masses. T. granulosa lay single eggs, torosa lay clusters. Very cool pics Russ, looks like you had a great time.

 

[russ]

And that's why I never claimed to be a Taricha expert. LOL. I'm sure the adults I saw were granulosa though.

RUSS

 

[jesper]

Cool, Haven't seen torosa egg clusters before, they aren't like the hynobius eggs sacs in that there are no "sac" right? They just stick together I assume?

 

[uwe]

Hi,

Nate said it all. Torosa lays eggmasses like the shown. BTW great picture. I am not sure about Hynobius, but these are very dense clusters and it is close to impossible without destroying to remove a single eggs from torosa eggs.
Where is San Ramone? It has to be in Cal. But if you are in the Sierra its the subspecies T.tor.sierrae you have seen.

Uwe

 

[russ]

San Ramone is east of the bay area in CA.

Nate, your comment about the eggs reminded me of something. I was in the exact same spot in Feb of 2000 and watch some newts laying eggs, singles, on the stems of a tree branch in the water. T.torosa and granulosa must both inhabit the area. It's a super area.

RUSS

 

[pin-pin]

Russ, absolutely beautiful photos.

There had been a question that I have been too lazy to investigate, so I'll throw it out in the forum. Since T.torosa and T. granulosa are known to interbreed and they both exist in the northern california area, what would the eggs of the hybrids look like? Would they be in a sac (like torosa) or singly (like granulosa).

 

[uwe]

Hi Pin-pin,

perfect start of a new discussion!
The first point would be: Is it true that they interbreed? Is there any scientific proof?
From an scientific stand-point the best would be take animals (1 gender each) of known origin and keep them together and see what happens. As this is forced mating it is still not sure to happen in nature, but it would answer your second question: how look the eggs like. I would say: the eggs look like the eggs of the female that deposits the eggs.

Uwe

 

[nate]

Yes, it's true and there is proof:

Twitty, V.C. 1961. Second-generation hybrids of the species Taricha. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 47: 1461-1486.

and

Twitty, V.C. 1964. Fertility of Taricha species-hybrids and viability of their offspring. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 51: 156-161.

I've never read either paper but I'm sure it discusses what sort of eggs the hybrids have. I've seen some animals from the San Francisco area which looked to hybrids, but had granulosa palatine tooth patterns.

(Message edited by nate on April 21, 2004)