Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hi,
my name is melissa. Recently i purchased 6 red spotted salamanders from a pet store. 2 died very quickly. the other 4 are doing ok but one (the smallest) isn't eating as well as the others. They love to spend long periods of time outside of the water. Is that normal? I've read what i can find on their habbits but mostly that just includes where they live, what they eat, and their breeding periods and land stage. Does anyone own red spotted salamanders and know some of the ins and outs of them? I've been feeding them worms and yesterday they relished some very small crickets. I'm glad to have found this forum and hope to learn alot about all types of newts and salamanders.
Thank you,
melissa.

Is this the red spotted salamander you purchased?

http://www.caudata.org/cc/species/Notophthalmus/N_viridescens.shtml

Ed

Yes, thank you ed, that is what I got. N.v.viridescens. I haven't had time yet to look thru that site. I'm glad you sent me that tho because my littlest salamander although she is not Red definately hates the water and that site had a pic of a terrestrial male that was not bright red but not quite green either. So maybe my little one is actually in the terrestrial phase. I'm going to set her up a dryer environment and get some small crickets from the local pet store. Maybe she'll be happier and eat a bit.

Is it possible for my salamanders to overeat? They eat till they look fit to explode and they do this almost everyday.

Otherwise it seems i've set things up for them pretty good. They are fascinating to watch and quite vicious for such little seemingly soft creatures.

They can eat themselves into obesity...

Ed