Reptile & Amphibian Forums

ok so i visit time and time to read the latest post on KS, but currently ive been on another forum with this person chattering about how shes a veg and how all of her critters are veg as well.

ive never keept newts, but i take it they are totaly carnivorious right? i mean they dont go out eating plants in the wild. if they do i will eat my hat and stop pestering the person for feeding her critters the green stuff.

thanks again for the responces ahead of time

Ashley
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"I’m scared of those nasty big-eyed grey aliens, too. I think it’s that I don’t understand their motivations. I am confident of my ability to out-think, out-con, or if need be, tire-iron-upside-the-head demonic forces, ghosts and goblins, things that go bump in the night, etc. It’s the notion of something that doesn’t have any desire to talk to me except via anal probe that freaks me out"

There are a number of references that indicate that newts and aquatic salamanders incidentally consume some algae when capturing prey but the references all indicate it tends to be very poorly digested as they do not have the length of gut necessary to consume and utilize plant material.
In addition many obligate carnivores (such as cats) require amino acids that cannot be obtained from plant material. For example "vegetarian cat foods" all have to add taurine (which is derived from meats) to the food or else the cats would die on the diet.

Usually argueing with people like that is useless, it is like pounding sand down a rat hole.

Ed