Information about Alpine Newt

Alpine Newt
Conservation status
Least Concern
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Amphibia Order: Caudata Family: Salamandridae Genus: Triturus Species: T. alpestris
Binomial name
Triturus alpestris (Laurenti, 1768)

The Alpine Newt (Triturus alpestris) belongs to the order Salamander (Urodela or Caudata) in the class of Amphibians. The alpine newt is one of five newts in Germany.

Description

During the mating season early in the year, the males exhibit blue colouring on their backs; their flanks are stippled black and white, and on the belly are marked with a blue stripe. The shallow crest is alternately spotted yellow and black. The females, in water camouflage, are mottle grey-brown-green and have some weak spotting on the back. The belly side of both sexes is bright orange to vermillion and always unmarked. The biggest of the males can reach up to nine, and the females up to twelve centimeters in length. After the mating season, older specimens have a darker, almost black, velvety skin (land camouflage).

Life and Habitat

The Alpine newt typically inhabits forests with good access to water in hilly to mountainous regions. They are mostly absent in forest-poor areas. They populate well in thick deciduous forests, as well as parland and natural gardens. Outside the spawning season, the Alpine Newt is a land animal. During the day it stays in all kinds of undergrowth, but during the mating season in cool water (forest pools, artificial pools). After the adults come out of winter dormancy, the Alpine Newts immediately take themselves to the spawning pools.

Location

The spread of the alpine newt is constricted to Central Europe and parts of mountainous Southern Europe as well as an isolated area on the Iberian Peninsula.

Endangerment

After a steep decrease in the Alpine Newt population in the 1960s-70s, they have apparently recovered their numbers a little bit. Surveillance in the surrounding area of Cologne (approximately 50 m above sea level) pointed particularly toward an increase in alpine newt numbers, whereas the numbers of newts in breeding pools seemed to decline. In home gardens, newts are settling in pools in which there can be a high reproduction rate. If fish are maintained in these ponds, the population even in larger ponds will be completely wiped out. However, a small pool of 150 litres volume had more than 60 Alpine Newt larvae of different sizes contained within it at the beginning of July 2003. They were likely spawned from just one female. [1]

Taxonomy

The Alpine Newt has been usually placed into the Triturus genus. García-París et.al.^[1] split the genus Triturus into three, and placed the Alpine Newt into its own genus Mesotriton. Also the subspecies T. a. inexpectatus was elevated to species status. However this split hasn't been completely accepted yet. Originally 9 subspecies of the Alpine Newt were recognized.

• T. a. alpestris (Laurenti, 1768) Alpine Newt
• T. a. apuanus (Gray, 1850) Italian Alpine Newt
• T. a. cyreni (Mertens & Muller, 1940) Spanish Alpine Newt
• T. a. lacusnigri (Dely, 1960) Yugoslavian Alpine Newt
• T. a. montenegrinus (Radovanovic, 1951) Montenegran Alpine Newt
• T. a. piperianus (Radovanovic, 1961)
• T. a. serdarus (Radovanovic, 1961)
• T. a. inexpectatus (Dubois & Breuil, 1983) Calabrian Alpine Newt
• T. a. veluchiensis (Wolterstorff, 1935) Greek Alpine Newt

References

• Arntzen, J.W. et al. (2004). Triturus alpestris. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 12 May 2006. Database entry includes a range map and justification for why this species is of least concern