Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I caught a beautiful redbacked salamander yesterday and set him up in a shoebox with a nice layer of that soft "Forest bed" stuff and a large piece of bark. The container was (humidity-wise) perfect for this type of lil guy. But by the end of the day I was having second thoughts and I took him back to his original home (he seemed pretty content in the shoebox though). I think I'll have to buy a captive bred salamander or something because I don't have the heart to take one from the wild. Anybody know any places that will sell cb marbled, spotted, or other "hardy" salamanders???

The most available captive bred salamander is probably the European Fire Salamander, Salamandra salamandra. There are a number of attractively marked subspecies. Mine is S.s.terestris. Most of them have a shiny black skin with sulfur yellow markings. T Some have a little red. hey are hardy. They can be very shy, but do well in a terrarium planted with pothos. One of my co-workers has one (a male) that is as bold as a tiger salamander. I have a female (probably from the same litter)that became shy as she matured. Check the amphibian classifieds. We see them occasionally at the monthly reptile show and swap in our area.

Well, salamander breeding really in its infancy, in its "stone age". Except for tiger salamanders, captive bred ambystomid salamanders are almost unheard of. But there are many people who take good care of them who occassionally offer them for sale. You can find them in the amphibian classifieds here at kingsnake (though as the spring winds down, there will be fewer and fewer of them) Newts on the other hand are available more frequently.
As a first salamander, if you want a terrestrial, i would recomned a tiger or a marbled. Spotteds canbe difficult to acclimate.
Much smaller salamnaders pose the problem of being a little hard to feed as you need access to tiny foods. Redbacks definitely fall into this category.
If you go to www.caudata.org
and join their email group, you will find that there are frequnet post about sallies for sale.

good luck

I hate to quibble about just one sentence, but...

Except for tiger salamanders? Since when? There has never been a documented breeding of metamorphosed tiger salamanders, ever.

Only A. mexicanum is regularly bred. Rarely, A. opacum and A. macrodactylum are also bred.

Hey all, I'm back. New forum, new postings.

Tigers haven't been bred in captivity yet (there have been a few claims but no proof), and several of the other ambystomids have been bred in captivity (marbleds being one of them). I would recommend a tiger though...very friendly, hardy, and colourful. Sadly, if you buy one it will be wild caught. You can get them fairly young, even as larva, which most places call incorrectly "waterdogs".

This way you can raise it from a baby in captivity...which may help ease your heart.

The other ambystomids are not bred commonly in captivity (I know of myself and a few other people who are trying to setup breeding populations of various ambystomids), but they are possible to find. Marbleds would probably be the most likly to be found in CB form, and possibly blue spotteds or jeffersons. I think you'll be hard pressed to find a CB Ambystomid.

The fire salamander that was recommend is also a good pet...though shy in comparision to a tiger. It has the same vibrant colours though, and are very hardy.

The other suggestion was to buy a newt. Spanish ribbed newts are large, friendly, and industructable! They are eating machines and quite commical to watch. I have no doubt a spanish ribbed newt could survive almost anything thta happend to it in captivity (provided you're not intentionally trying to kill it). They are quite the animals.
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Hope my opinions help,
Rob

well i won't bring up a silly debate here but there are lots of peoplel who keep tigers in the yardss in the northeast (like people keep, say, box turtles) which reprouduce every year. So if becasue they are not kept in a fish tank then they are not "captive bred", then fine. But in many cases these animals are brought to the yards or actually purchased (i had friends whose parents did this, when i was a kid upstate new york, out of the tiger's range) and if the yard is fenced (but sometimes not) and there is a pond they get eggs every few years. I was given some of these larva as a kid and we had others as "class pets" several years in a row....all from the same kid's parents pond (the adults having been purchased at a pet store).
I 'm sure there are other cases of this too.

i am curious as to which other ambystomids you people are trying to breed. I simply adore all mole salamanders and would love to hear about their progress.

Silly isn't quite the right word...ludicrous is more like it to describe taking credit for tigers breeding naturally outside in a pond that happens to be on private property. This is no different than me putting up a fence around the pond in my backyard and claiming all the amphibians that happen to live there are "captive bred". A fence has absolutely nothing to do with anything, since tigers are fossorial and often live several feet under ground. It is not a barrier to them coming and going by any stretch of the imagination. By this logic, I've also bred several species of birds who have nested in my birdhouse and in the trees on my property, as well as a few squirrels in the attic. And geez...think of all the insects I've bred! The invert hobbyists will be amazed...

I hate to sound so negative, but to me, it's total disinformation and only clouds the reality of breeding Ambystoma and the true status of wild-caught tigers which are marketed to unsuspecting newcomers as "captive bred".

As for who's breeding what, both opacum and macrodactylum are being bred sporadically here in the states and regularly by a few individuals in Europe. A. laterale has been bred in the past as well as neotenic talpoideum.

I am currently look working with marbled and spotted salamanders, and just waiting for the blue spotteds to come in. I intend to work with as many as possible, just need to find them.

There have also been people who have bred spotteds in an outdoor enclosure in Europe, but can't produce the results inside. That's what we need to figure out for true captive breeding..how to do it in completly artifical environments. At least that's my opinion.
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Hope my opinions help,
Rob

its great that you are working on amystomids but i really don't understand why its not captive breeding simply beacuse you didn't bui;d a brick wall and a floor.
Would you have been more satisfied with the result if the outside enclosures in europe were surrounded by walls and carefully had deep concrete floors placed 20 feet beneath them?

Hey there,

I'm not saying you're wrong and that you can't call them captive bred, but I also feel the conditions they were bred in must be revealed to any potential purchasers so they are aware what your definition of captive bred is.

Should they have placed huge walls and a cement bottom I would still not consider it captive breeding. Reason? Everything was not controlled. Insects can fall/get into the area and be eaten. Variations that we can't detect or monitor occur outside that may or may not encourage breeding. If we can't identify these things then while one person may keep animals outside and be successful, someone who is elsewhere in the country may not be able to have them breed outside under similar conditions. If we have them inside in a more controlled environment it should be reproducable anywhere so long as the same or similar conditions are met. At that point is when I feel it is true captive breeding. To me, this means they must be indoors. This is just my definition...but I feel a good majority of people feel similar to I.
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Hope my opinions help,
Rob

your definition is wuite reasonable. I suppose the slight variations which we cannot control domake adiference in some cases. When imentioned turtle farms i was aware of the similarity of course, but also of asubtle but important difference which i neglected. True, a turtle farm may consist soley of a bunch of turtles outside in alrge pond (which may even be a "natural pond" and may in some cases (like louisianna and sliders) be within the natural range of the animals in question, but the differenc eis that lots of turtle species breed anywahere provided ther eis enough food, nesting araes clean water and a chnage of season (some don't even need this).

So you are of course right that there may have been some environmental cues available to the salamanders in the New York ponds that were unobserable to the "breeders". In retrospect i guess i have to revise my statement and say that they were "marginally captives" and theit progeny was of at least questionably captive origin. But there are many situation in zoos and large collections in which mnay of the variables are, indeed not, controlled. But i was interested in debunking this myth that it can't be done for tigers. That salamanders of these types were somehow super difficult with regards to breeding. My guess has always been that large amounts of space and more careful changes in ambient temperature and humidity were at the source of the problem with captive breding of ambystomids. But i suppose there could be a component of the food supply which appears at a certain time and contains some chemical which triggers aresponse as well. I am glad that you considered the case seriously though instead of defering to the dogmatic silliness we hear so often. You point is well received.

I understand what you mean. Many people just jump on the bandwagon without giving it serious thought themself. It's all subjective anyways, and I think if you want to call them captive bred you're more then entitled to call them that, provided that you also explain your definition of captive bred so anyone interested in your work or purchasing an animal from you is well aware of it.

Thanks for your kind words. Keep in touch.

>>your definition is wuite reasonable. I suppose the slight variations which we cannot control domake adiference in some cases. When imentioned turtle farms i was aware of the similarity of course, but also of asubtle but important difference which i neglected. True, a turtle farm may consist soley of a bunch of turtles outside in alrge pond (which may even be a "natural pond" and may in some cases (like louisianna and sliders) be within the natural range of the animals in question, but the differenc eis that lots of turtle species breed anywahere provided ther eis enough food, nesting araes clean water and a chnage of season (some don't even need this).
>>
>>So you are of course right that there may have been some environmental cues available to the salamanders in the New York ponds that were unobserable to the "breeders". In retrospect i guess i have to revise my statement and say that they were "marginally captives" and theit progeny was of at least questionably captive origin. But there are many situation in zoos and large collections in which mnay of the variables are, indeed not, controlled. But i was interested in debunking this myth that it can't be done for tigers. That salamanders of these types were somehow super difficult with regards to breeding. My guess has always been that large amounts of space and more careful changes in ambient temperature and humidity were at the source of the problem with captive breding of ambystomids. But i suppose there could be a component of the food supply which appears at a certain time and contains some chemical which triggers aresponse as well. I am glad that you considered the case seriously though instead of defering to the dogmatic silliness we hear so often. You point is well received.
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Hope my opinions help,
Rob

the point is that the slaamnders were brought to that pond from e;lsewhere....sometimes in decent numbers....thye were not within their natural range the were re loacted there and they remained, rtetuned to the pond annually and bred.
How is this diffrent froma turtle farm
or any time you take an animal from anywhere, put a fence around it and they breed and then you take credit for it?
i know lots of people want herptoculture to be a deep science but in many cases providing appropraite substitutes for "natural " settings is all anybody does when they raise and breed anumals. Sorry if my post demystified your a piece of herptoculrural dogma. as far as i am concerned they were as captive bred as many other things we brag about.

I think you did the right thing. Every sal I took from the wild would refuse to eat and within a week I re-released them. The Kingsnake classifieds often have nice sals, like fire sals or tigers, or even spotteds. I'd buy one from a captive breeder, as an adult, because in my experience it is hard to raise sal eggs (though others might have had better luck than I.)
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*~Ginevive~*

It's actually not that hard to raise a newt from an egg, provided you keep clean, aerated water and use small live food items.

The animals advertised on the forums though are NOT captive bred animals. You won't find any captive bred ones through this site...but if you look at caudata.org you may find some captive bred animals (not tigers or spotteds though).

>>I think you did the right thing. Every sal I took from the wild would refuse to eat and within a week I re-released them. The Kingsnake classifieds often have nice sals, like fire sals or tigers, or even spotteds. I'd buy one from a captive breeder, as an adult, because in my experience it is hard to raise sal eggs (though others might have had better luck than I.)
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>>*~Ginevive~*
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Hope my opinions help,
Rob

Wow. I would definately avoid buying anything that was wildcaught. You never know how many they collected, they might just be exploiting wsild populations and not caring about setting a limit on the catch. It would be better to just catch your own, one or two, in that case.
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*~Ginevive~*

I don't know where you live, but around here, bait shops sell wild-caught tiger larvae, usually called water dogs, as bait. Also sometimes adult tigers. So if you go buy one or two, you would be saving it from ending up on a hook.
I have one tiger. He's great, very personable. OK, he probably doesn't really give a darn about me, but I bring the food and that he REALLY likes!