Triturus marmoratus (male courtship, female rejection)

[TJ]

 

[terry]

Hello Tim, Now those are a series of photos I truly love! Nice attempt to capture the courtship of the marbled newts! Very good sequence of photos mate! show us more!

 

[rubén]

Great shots Tim

One question: Do you keep aquatic your marms the whole year?

 

[alex]

Nice pictures.
I notice a large amount of black on the animals. And nice clear spots on the male.
Coincidence or due to the region they originate from?

(Message edited by TJ on November 19, 2005)

 

[TJ]

Hi all.

It was sad to watch this astonishing male display go unrewarded by this fussy female

But hey, I too have been rebuffed a time or two by the object(s) of my affection and survived to court again, so there's no reason why this handsome fellow shouldn't also!

Terry, it's hard to get decent photos in a tank like this with no substrate and lots of glare. The others in this series were all too blurry. I might get around to adding substrate tomorrow though.

No, Ruben, they're usually kept on land, with the option of going aquatic when it suits them. They're still young and first took to water only last spring, when they bred for me. They just started taking to water again a couple of weeks ago. Their large tank is half-land, half-water. I just added lots of Egeria densa in there last night in anticipation of eggs.

 

[TJ]

Hi Alex, and welcome to the site. I don't know where they're from, but they're the same ones featured in these threads:

Going aquatic:
http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/13/32376.html?1113393041

Laying eggs:
http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/13/34333.html?1116236697

an older thread:
http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/13/12299.html?1108997278

 

[rubén]

Hi Alex, and welcome

I heard about 95 % black marms...but haven't seen it.

Tim, when youngs, your marms were terrestrial or aquatic?... I mean if only when they became adults they went to the water.

(Message edited by TJ on November 19, 2005)

 

[TJ]

Rubén, they were raised terrestrially and only ever entered the water (post-morph, that is) last spring as adults, so this marks their 2nd time to do so (and twice in one year!).

Well, in fact, one of the eight has stayed in the water ever since last spring. There are still three on land, yet to enter the water, but all eight were in the water last spring, so I anticipate that they too will enter sooner or later.

Rubén, do mine look like any you've seen in the wild in Spain? Their bellies are generally light, not dark. See:

http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/13/12449.jpg

(Message edited by TJ on November 19, 2005)

 

[jennifer]

oooooo, I'm having "crest envy"! My marmoratus have headed into the water, but the males don't seem to be ready for courtship yet. Nice pictures!

 

[alex]

Thanks Tim and Rubén for your reactions. I had indeed mistaken the names.
But I will be more cautious (on the thread I use) next time.

 

[mike]

Hi Tim, nice photos, thanks for posting. It's great to see good photos series that capture behavior like that. Mike

 

[josh]

Tim your triturus marmoratus are beautiful!

 

[rubén]

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>Tim wrote on Friday, 18 November, 2005 - 17:22 :</font>

"Rubén, do mine look like any you've seen in the wild in Spain? Their bellies are generally light, not dark. See:

http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/13/12449.jpg"<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>

Well, those bellies looks certainly of spanish marbled newts, in the southern limit of the marmoratus distribution range. I saw that belly pattern in Burgos, Valladolid and La Rioja provinces, but we must be careful about the origin cause I don't know well what kind of belly pattern shows french marbled newts...

 

[TJ]

Hi Alex, I went back and deleted some portions of the thread due to the mixup. No problem. Once again, we're glad to have you with us!

That's interesting what you said about some marbleds being especially black. I would very much like to see a photo of the 95% black ones that Rubén referred to!

(Message edited by TJ on November 19, 2005)