Dudley have had spawn from their Lesser Sirens, and in conventional fashion are speculating it may be a UK first! Anyone heard of the species spawning here before? Amphibian record | Dudley Zoological Gardens Good news, anyway!
hmm, look what I found after a 30 second google search Lesser sirens, lessons learnt - Caudata.org Newt and Salamander Forum Thats a private keeper not a zoo, but seriously, the ones at Dudley were kept by their education department!! Do they not know how to do, you know, research?
A lot of zoos don't really consider private keepers as proper. There are quite a few species declared as never or rarely bred, that actually breed well in private hands. I remember a few years back a zoo claiming to be the first to breed fennec foxes in years, whereas there were quite a few breeding in private hands during that time.
yes I wouldn't mind if they said something like "the first time bred by a [British] zoo" (although it does now seem to be reasonably common for zoos to say that as well when it plainly isn't true).
Absolutely true. The reality is that there are many,many UK First Breedings achieved by private keepers in the UK and in wider European community, in particular with herptiles, fish and bird species. Some are recognised, others sadly not, but they are often rarely acknowledged by the (public) zoo commmunity, most would not know they even exist.
Bit of a moot point now as the Lesser Siren offspring d.n.s. to 30 days and the adult males have since died too-a shame.
This is a great shame. I have only seen sirens in a few zoos. It's a pity that many zoos don't have a good collection of salamanders, as these amphibians show so much variety and some, such as the Texas blind salamander are very unusual, as well as being endangered. While arrow poison frogs can be very colourful, it's a shame that they tend to form a large percentage of amphibian species in many zoos.
I for one wouldn't complain about the zoo world showing off more caudates, would love to see giant salamander species become more common. I think the problem is that newts and salamanders aren't as visible as dart frogs and hence many people would tend to see an empty enclosure.
Dudley are quite good for amphibians as zoos go, fire newts, ribbed newts, axolotls, crested newts, and a few kinds of frog. When I was there we countered their elusive nature by getting them out of their tanks most of the time. But I would love to see a giant salamander there, they are awesome, even if they don't move much! ETA - Caecilians would also be awesome, only ever seen them in private hands in the UK, not sure if any zoo has them?
London Zoo has 4 species of caecilians. Only one species (Typhlonectes compressicauda) was on show recently, but the amphibian enclosures were covered on my last visit. Caecilians can be very elusive, but the caecilian is one of my favourite species at London Zoo. I agree with Javan Rhino that salamanders can be elusive, but some of them are obvious. I wonder why the hellbender never became a cult animal. Its name is even more stunning than that of the Tasmanian devil, which became a popular cartoon character.
Chester and London spring to mind off the top of my head for keeping caecilians in the UK, in fact London keep 4 species [though not all on-show]. Edit: Changed London's keeping to 4 species, thought it was 3 from memory.
Typhlonectes were occasionally imported a few years ago, I don't know if they are still available in the pet trade now. But I confess that they rank with hagfish and some of the more amorphous catfishes as the animals I find hardest to love Alan
Paignton also have caecilians (Typhlonectes natans, billed as "Rubber Eel") in their rather splendid new* amphibian section -off the top of my head I'd say only London has a better on show amphibian section in the UK. * to me, last visit about three years ago.
Aw, I went there a couple of years ago too and no amphibian section then, it's a great zoo though, wouldn't mind a return visit soon.
