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I have two Chinese firebelly newts who have been displaying breeding behaviour for about a month now. I found a little dead baby newt once in their tank (about 3 weeks ago), but after that nothing. Earlier this week, I was feeding them when I noticed a little white ball floating around in the tank. I freaked out and put it in a little tub of water to see what happens So far, nothing. But, my question is, is this thing an actual egg, or just some ... uh, thing? It's a white ball, no bigger than 1/2 cm in diameter, with little brown lines on it. It was just floating around near a corner of the tank (which is odd if it is an egg, because they're supposed to be attached to the plants)

http://www.caudata.org has some photos of eggs on there so you can compare. It shouldn't be a white ball..should be a clear ball with a small whitish grayish centre. THe centre starts as a circle but changes into an oval, then into two ovals, and slowly looks more and more like a larva.

>>I have two Chinese firebelly newts who have been displaying breeding behaviour for about a month now. I found a little dead baby newt once in their tank (about 3 weeks ago), but after that nothing. Earlier this week, I was feeding them when I noticed a little white ball floating around in the tank. I freaked out and put it in a little tub of water to see what happens So far, nothing. But, my question is, is this thing an actual egg, or just some ... uh, thing? It's a white ball, no bigger than 1/2 cm in diameter, with little brown lines on it. It was just floating around near a corner of the tank (which is odd if it is an egg, because they're supposed to be attached to the plants)
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Hope my opinions help,
Rob

I've seen those pictures before, and that's what I've been looking for in my search for little newt children. Well, to add to the story a little, the little white ball started to get a bit fuzzy, and I read somewhere that if an egg gets fuzzy, it's a dud and you should get rid of it. Before I threw it out, I decided to "investigate" it to see if it really was an egg or something else. I squeezed it slightly, and it made a little *crick* (like an egg breaking sound) and cracked down the middle. I broke it a bit further, and there was red stuff inside, and it bled a little (I'm assuming it was blood...). So my guess is that it really WAS an egg, but it doesn't make sense, because eggs from Chinese firebellies don't look like that o_O *confused*

Yeah..newt and salamander eggs do not have a hard shell but are in a type of jelly substance. If it actually cracked opend as you described it definatly wasn't a newt egg. Do you have a large snail or anything else in there with them? Any other animals at all in there?

>>I've seen those pictures before, and that's what I've been looking for in my search for little newt children. Well, to add to the story a little, the little white ball started to get a bit fuzzy, and I read somewhere that if an egg gets fuzzy, it's a dud and you should get rid of it. Before I threw it out, I decided to "investigate" it to see if it really was an egg or something else. I squeezed it slightly, and it made a little *crick* (like an egg breaking sound) and cracked down the middle. I broke it a bit further, and there was red stuff inside, and it bled a little (I'm assuming it was blood...). So my guess is that it really WAS an egg, but it doesn't make sense, because eggs from Chinese firebellies don't look like that o_O *confused*
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Hope my opinions help,
Rob

Nope, no other animals. Just the two firebellies. That's why I'm all confused.

Oh, and one more question - how large are ACTUAL newt eggs (i.e. the ones in jelly)? There's a little jelly thing stuck between two leaves with a brown squiggle in the middle. It could be a jelly-egg, or it could just be slime, I dunno.

That is strange. Newt eggs depend on the species, but CFBNs aren't very big at all. Maybe 5-10mm diametre, including the jelly sphere around them.

Can you take a photo?
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Hope my opinions help,
Rob

I don't have a photo of the old egg-like thing that I found, and the newer smaller jelly-er one is reeeeeally tiny, so it probably wouldn't show up on film. Actually, I think it's shrivelled up, because it wasn't underwater. It's gotten smaller than it was before, so maybe I killed it >

If they are newt eggs just keep any future ones under water. They wouldn't be so tiny that they wouldn't show up on film though...I think my CFBN newts laid eggs that were about 0.5-1cm in diameter or so.

>>I don't have a photo of the old egg-like thing that I found, and the newer smaller jelly-er one is reeeeeally tiny, so it probably wouldn't show up on film. Actually, I think it's shrivelled up, because it wasn't underwater. It's gotten smaller than it was before, so maybe I killed it >
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Hope my opinions help,
Rob