the online meeting place for all who love our amphibians and reptiles |
|
Most pregnant newt ever... |
Post Reply |
Author | |
liamrussell
Senior Member Joined: 13 Jan 2005 Status: Offline Points: 100 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Posted: 29 May 2014 at 11:22am |
Saw this in a pond last night. I've seen some pretty big females before but never anything this size.
Sorry about the ropey photos...
|
|
GemmaJF
Admin Group Joined: 25 Jan 2003 Location: Essex Status: Offline Points: 4359 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
|
Most newts should be pretty much exhausted of eggs by now, disease of some sort?
|
|
liamrussell
Senior Member Joined: 13 Jan 2005 Status: Offline Points: 100 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
|
There was a lot of laying going on last night and other pregnant females about too so they are definitely still going at this pond. There were eggs of a range of ages on the plants, some pretty new and some already hatched.
It could be a disease. I've seen them when the whole newt swells up due to something going awry with their osmoregulation but with them the tail always swells too and becomes round. This one had a normal tail for an aquatic phase newt, i.e. flat. It could be something else, I know reptiles can get "egg bound" and can't lay their eggs for some reason (I've seen a sand lizard which had only managed to lay half its clutch and the rest appeared stuck in the body), so could be something similar.
|
|
Caleb
Senior Member Joined: 11 Apr 2011 Status: Offline Points: 660 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
|
Looks like bloat to me- it doesn't always affect the tail, in my experience. Was it floating near the surface? Bloated newts sometimes find it hard to stay underwater.
There's a good article on bloat in (mostly captive) newts on caudata.org: http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/bloatEDK.shtml
Extreme gravidity doesn't extend as near to the head as that, even the most gravid females are usually vaguely pear-shaped. Edited by Caleb - 30 May 2014 at 10:54am |
|
liamrussell
Senior Member Joined: 13 Jan 2005 Status: Offline Points: 100 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
|
Thanks Caleb, interesting. I'd not seen bloat like that before where it doesn't affect the tail, and it looks fairly similar to a couple of the photos there.
The newt seemed to behave pretty normally, I caught it from the bottom and it swam to the bottom when I released it again, which is one of the reasons I thought it might not be bloat. Whenever I've seen newts with bloat before they've been sluggish at the surface and barely able to move. Maybe it was in the early stages. |
|
Post Reply | |
Tweet
|
Forum Jump | Forum Permissions You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot create polls in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum |