.............well, i got better

April 8, 2007 7:20 PM

salamander/newt pollywog food

In the past, I raised a clutch of tree frog eggs which the mother had laid in a puddle which wouldn't last through the spring. It was really fun and liked thinking that I had helped the little buggers.

anyway, I found a pond near my house with salamander or newt pollywogs and got real excited and took a bunch home with me. If it helps identify the animal, I live south of seattle and there are pictures here

The catch is, im having trouble finding the right food. The tree frog pollywogs ate just about anything i could throw at them, but these guys are ignoring fish flakes, frozen blood worms and algae pellets and are instead taking bites at each other.

I think this means I need live food?

suggestions? Ideally, it'd be something I could go back to the pond and grab a bunch of (free) but id be willing to go the pet store route.

The pond had tons of these punctuation sized aquatic bugs. Maybe those?

If i can't get them to eat, Ill return them to the pond.

posted by nihlton to Pets & Animals (6 answers total)

We always fed our tadpoles boiled dandelion greens. Pick, wash, boil, and plop on the surface. The upshot is you get a little weeding done!
posted by nelleish at 7:48 PM on April 8, 2007

Best answer: Apparently, yes they need live food (also note that newts and salamanders are carnivorous for their whole lives). You may need to go to the pet store for a bit, until you can start your own culture (assuming you're ok with having a culture of brine shrimp or worms or whatever, if you're not ok with this then you would need to go to the pet store all of the time). Anyway, that link and other stuff on the same site should have plenty of information for you.
Disclaimer: I am not a newt fancier...but this is what I love about Ask MeFi, a random opportunity to research someone else's question that I may otherwise never have even thought of...who knew newts were carnivorous?
posted by anaelith at 7:52 PM on April 8, 2007 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: so pretty much any pond insect as long as its not big enough to eat them. awesome. I think Ill just go back to the pond and bring back a bunch of pond water.
posted by nihlton at 8:00 PM on April 8, 2007

get like a 10" ring (or loop of heavy wire) and stretch a stocking (or 1 leg of a panty hose over it).

Use that to trawl through pond water. You will concentrate your collection of small bugs/crustaceans that way.
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 9:58 PM on April 8, 2007 [1 favorite]

MonkeySaltedNuts - that's awesome!
posted by amtho at 6:14 AM on April 9, 2007

More stuff I've discovered: Newts are actually just a type of salamander. Newts and possibly all salamanders can be toxic, some more so then others, so make sure you wash your hands thoroughly if you end up touching them. It is bloody hard to identify species from pictures of pollywogs, so I'll leave that to you, but watch out for a few things:

• the toxicity issues mentioned previously
• conservation status (generally think it's unlikely that you found the Magickal Rare Salamander in a puddle, but who knows)
• different types mature in different ways, some are actually laid on land and live on land their whole lives, others never leave the water--I suspect you have the middle of the road types, but it would probably be useful to know if they're going to start wanting air and dirt in four weeks or two years.

This page has an OK listing of salamanders in Washington state, and this is super useful (after you've selected something and clicked search, there will be a simplify button on the left which will paradoxically give you more options). (Errors: It may recommend a couple of lungless salamanders, which I don't think match because lungless salamanders are apparently the type which live on land for their whole lives. Similarly, I don't think it's likely to be any of the "giant" varieties, because those are supposed to be aggressive in defending their young.)
posted by anaelith at 8:08 AM on April 9, 2007