What's in it for YOU?

[Opacum]

To satisfy my own curiosity: I always want to know what drives people to keep caudates, of all things. Is it for love, convenience, the need to care for something, financial gain, helping a species in distress, a mix of these reasons... what? Why are we drawn to such a 'niche' pit? What is so darn cool about newts and salamanders? Looking forward to your answers and thanking you in advance. :supercool:

 

[Molch]

can't honestly say. I have loved newts for so long that I can't clearly separate my love for them from my love for food, or air, or water. They've just....always been there, as long as I can remember.

When I was 4 or 5, I allegedly went missing from kindergarten and, after a brief frantic search, was found knee-deep in the village fire pond catching newts and sticking them in my pockets (poor newts, I know).

Later, I'd skip out of elementary school classes with my two best friends Olaf #1 and Olaf #2* and we'd have newt-catching contests at that same pond. At the end, we'd count heads and tally up the winner: females were one point, alpine males 2 points, nice vulgaris in full breeding gear 3 points. Then we'd let the newts go again, except for one or two we'd keep at home in our aquariums. We even brought some to class once and let them crawl over the teacher's desk, which had the anticipated results (excitement, scolding, afternoon phone call to the parents).

I've been fond of newts almost before I have loved anything else. So there it is.

* Olaf #1 grew up to be a hydrological engineer; Olaf #2 allegedly did some time later on, but I have long lost track of him.

 

[olivia newt]

Hmmm...

I think I keep them to try to save them from extinction. Also just as something to do....maybe even to escape from life every now and then.

 

[esn]

I keep my animals because I love them. That's the only reason.

 

[Azhael]

Like molch, i´ve always been fascinated by newts and by extension all caudates. I was 6 when i saw my first newt in a little river just by my grandparent´s house. It was a beautiful male Lissotriton helveticus and i fell in love instantly. From then on a significant part of my summers at my grandparent´s was spent looking for more and getting fooled by my brother and my cousin who´d tell me filthy lies about where to find them in their hundreds. Argh...that little river used to be paradise, pristine and healthy, full of sooooo many animals and even some rare species (like Neomys anomalus or Alcedo atthis...and now it´s a lifeless, stone emprisoned thing...

I keep caudates because i find them beautiful and fascinating but also because just a glance at one teleports me into my favourite place in the world...a damp beech forest with creeks and pools and the smell of rotten leaves....aahh...

Edit: Forgot to say that i also was the kind of kid that caught everything and anything he could and brought it home (once i brought home over 40 wall lizards -mostly juveniles- my brother should have known better than to challenge me), but that first newt and some others later on always caused trouble because everybody in the villlage thought they were very poisonous and touching one could kill you. Few times in my childhood have i ever felt cooler than when i triumphantly held one in my hand for my grandparent´s and their neighbours to see while neglecting to explain how they are essentially harmless to us. Yes, i was born a nerd.

 

[Bellabelloo]

I think the happiest times where on my grandfathers farm. He had a river running past the front of the house that I used to walk through, bare footed, even in the middle of winter. Here I would catch sticklebacks and acquire horse leaches ..If I was lucky I would find slow worms. Some of these needless to say would come home with me.
In spring time the pigs clay pond would seem to be full to bursting with toads and frogs. After a few too many occasions of getting slightly stuck in there I was told that a giant pike lived in it, every now and then a pig would be snatched for supper....it took me a few years to realise this was to deter me from wading in. Nearly every year I would rise a batch of spawn, which would grow and escape. My parents still have an enormous population of frogs.
I found my first newts in the ditches running around the fields. These I was not allowed to bring home. I
I think my hobby stems from these fond memories of spending hours exploring and occasionally finding something wonderful.

 

[Opacum]

You guys are posting some fantastic replies and I can feel so much of what you are saying. I think, for myself, caudates are amazing on so many levels. My favorite thing about them stems from the fact that they live "under" the Earth, in a literal sense, and are the denizens of Nature's most lovely places. They guard us, as it were, as they are so connected to the fiber of the planet that they absorb it through their skin and tell us when the environment is going awry. These little, silent gems, exist under our feet and have so for millions of years. While we go at our frenetic pace, they carry on in inextricable harmony with our world and are sensitive to the mildest fluctuations that this orb may undergo. So fragile and so tough, so small and yet so grand. To me they are the embodiment of survivors and everything that is awe-inspiring and timeless about evolution and God's handiwork...

 

[AngieD]

I started being dotty about newts at the start of last year, when someone brought 3 chinese fire-bellied newts into a pet shop (gave or sold). Which my boyfriend then asked me to buy for him for his birthday.
Fortunately it was a very good shop and they treated the newts well. Soon after we bought them, they went into breeding mode Seeing the eggs develop and eventually hatch is amazing.

I also find it incredible how they all exhibit different personalities

 

[Molch]

but that first newt and some others later on always caused trouble because everybody in the villlage thought they were very poisonous and touching one could kill you. Few times in my childhood have i ever felt cooler than when i triumphantly held one in my hand for my grandparent´s and their neighbours to see while neglecting to explain how they are essentially harmless to us. Yes, i was born a nerd.

.... and acquire horse leaches .

haha - from my pond wadings I was very familiar with horse leeches. We had some that were a foot long and as thick as my finger.

Once in 7th or 8th grade, the teacher brought a leech to class to show us. It was just a little one, maybe 4 inches long. Everybody was mortally afraid of it and wouldn't go near it. I, however, volunteered to let it bite me so that everyone could see it fill up with blood. Even the teacher was hesitant that this was a good idea. I assured him that I'd been leeched many times before and that it was perfectly harmless. He reluctantly agreed. So then I put the leech on my arm and it drilled in and everybody watched in AWE as it became plump with blood and when it finally let go, I showed everyone the tiny little triangular incision it made. Of course, I bled like a stuck pig all that day. For once in my nerdy life, I was the COOLEST kid in the school for at least a week

 

[jewett]

I have always liked animals, from finding frogs on my grandmothers horse ranch in Idaho to bringing home baby birds that fell out of trees. I still prefer the company of animals to most people. My sisters and I were limited to the types of pets we could have - nothing with fur or feathers - so that pretty much just left herps. My sisters weren't too interested in these non cuddly options, but I sure was, and had a few anole lizards and firebelly toads. I got my first newt in 5th grade, and she outlived all my other critters, so much so that by the time I was about 20 I wondered how long do these suckers live? So I went online to find out, and found some nice people on another forum (Jen Macke being most prominent in memory), and they pointed me to this GREAT forum. Here I learned about these other cool newts that other people keep, and how to better care for the one I had. I still have her - a Cynops pyrrhogaster. She's like the matriarch of my little newt room and I credit her with my continued interest in these animals.
I think I also like newts because I feel I can so easily meet there needs in an economical and environmentally friendly way - they don't need expensive heat or UV lights, I don't have to run filters and replace carbon cartridges, I don't have to breed and gutload crickets to feed them, I use their spent water for my houseplants (organic fertilizer included!). I don't have to walk them and pick up their poo in a little plastic bag.
And I like that they are a fairly unique hobby. I know that there are hundreds of members of this forum, but I don't run into other newt keepers at the pet shops, and when I buy worms at the Smiths grocery store and am asked what type of fish am I after, I love the looks on cashier faces when I reply "None, these are for my newts."
Their biology is cool. They can regenerate limbs. They start life out like a weird little fish thing and wind up a "water lizard" (as my nephew refers to them as). They recognize me and respond to my presence.
They are just fascinating yet relatively easy animals - they make it so I can have a bit of Nature in my basement!
Heather

 

[vagus]

Because it is hard to take life too seriously when you are being stared at by a newt with a worm hanging out of its mouth.