Is this newt smooth or what?

[smartie]

I've always assumed that the newts in my pond were smooth newts - and I still think so. But today I've had a bit of a crisis of confusion.

Could someone confirm that this is a smooth newt? In breeding "plumage"? Or not, of course... For scale, the pellets of fish food that it is about to try to choke itself on are about 20mm long.



Rubbish photo, I know - the water is full of algae and the newts kept swimming away

[phil2]

no good pic,im not good with newts but yes id say smooth.

[honeybee]

I'd say smooth. Do fish pellets go soft in water? Choking is the most common cause of a newts demise as they can get a bit greedy.

[smartie]

Yes, fish pellets do go soft pretty quickly once they hit the water. The newts nose them about and take bites out of them. I keep a careful eye out and have occasionally been a bit worried about their enthusiasm, but over several years we've had no choking problems.

[The Woodman]

Smooth newt, no visible palmations on back feet. Are the pellets to feed fish or do you put them in to feed the newts? Am interested because I'd have thought that newts spawning with fish in same waterbody would have been a bit dodgy?

[smartie]

It is dodgy in theory. There are both fish and newts in the pond - the fish were put in there first in our less wildlife-aware days. The adults coexist happily, so far as we can tell. The newts breed with gusto and seem to multiply each year, so enough of their spawn survives to be viable. There is lots of cover in the pond so we assume some cunning or lucky taddies manage to stay out of trouble each year. It's the frogs that have to worry - the newts as well as the fish eat their spawn.

[fbcpmike]

Female Common or Smooth Newt - Triturus vulgaris
Female are light brown with darker spots or specks and dark spots to the throat.
Males are brown to olive green black spots, in breeding colours they have orange undersides with black spots and a wavy dorsal crest. Breeding season is about 2/3 over now.

[m1.carson]

Hi,

Definitely a male smooth newt, crested have, as the name suggests, a crest down their backs, thats much more prominent.

[nightshade]

Smooth newt these seem to spend a lot of time under stones
around my pond edge They sure are greedy I have seen one tackle
a worm its own length before now,not seen one eat pellets before
although the tapoles nibble

[Gill Catton]

Originally Posted by m1.carson

Hi,

Definitely a male smooth newt, crested have, as the name suggests, a crest down their backs, thats much more prominent.

yes but its confusing for a lot of people because they see a newt with a crest (and the male smoothy does have a crest albeit smaller) and think they have great crested newts (GCN). The number of times I've come accross that makes me wish for a change of name!!



BTW it does seem that smooth newts are able to survive alongisde fish far more successfully than GCN for some reason....