YELLOW BELLIED TOADS FEEDING - EUROPEAN BOMBINA

Must have forgotten about this video and as I was doing another three videos with one on corruption I thought I would put this one up.

My two types of Yellow Bellied Toads belonging to the European branch of the Bombina family.

Rest assured you are going to see a great deal more on this blog during the coming year and if all goes well it should build up a fair old bit too?!

A FEW VIDEOS OF MY BOMBINA & APUANUS

Right now these following videos were before I moved them... CANNOT RECALL IF I POSTED THEM ALL UP LOL... NEAR BOTTOM IS THE NEW ARRANGEMENT SET UP AND SOME SURPRISING APPEARANCE OF SOME EGGS?!?!

AFTER BEING MOVED (have since added the third strip-light)

After spotting some small dark balls among the plants about the same size as a newt eggs which dumbfounded me, as I do not know what they are and nothing to do with the plants, I almost become confused.

A few days later I glance inside and spot that the balls have now gone a light colour and doing an exact impersonation of a newt egg! Until that is I spot a gelatinous coating! I will add that is really the wrong time of the year from my experience. Added to this the eggs are smaller than they should be and have been laid over a period of a few weeks despite there being only about two dozen of them?!

Very weird as those with experience will note that the egg laying is done rather quickly oin all European species even if they are laid singley! It might take them a couple of nights but you normally look in and see white eggs everywhere, not scrape out a couple of dozen (do not think I even have that much as yet) over a two week period?! Lol!

The possibilities are that they are newly mature or are from a wild population of a lower altitude to the norm as this would mean the climate is warmer and therefore they would breed and lay eggs in our autumn. Otherwise in the 30 degree plus heat bodies of water would not be around long enough. In the south of Iberia most species will spawn or as in the Fire Salamanders, drop their live young in and around December to early January. As this species is found in Northern Italy and not Southern Italy this does suggest that an October time would make sense for animals at lower altitudes. So you see the further south you go in Europe the later this gets, with variations depending on other factors like altitude (as affects temperature) and weather systems (freaky rain in parts of Italy caused by Northerly winds carrying cold air from the Alps clashing with EXTREMELY moist air coming from the Mediterranean across the West Coast before rolling over the Western Mountains and rolling and condensing in the valley between the Western and Eastern Apennines Mountains.

It is this latter freaky combination that drenches the Eastern Mountains where the Salamandra salamandra gigliolii live and are found frequently during daytime hours on Western faces of the mountains. Well until the sun comes up from the East and over the peaks of said mountains thereby warming everything up and evaporating any residual moisture. So probably somewhere between midday and 2pm the moisture disappears as do the Salamanders?! The Bombina found their, Bombina pachypus, also bright orange stay with the streams and pools of water so not at risk of drying out so quick as are the Salamanders. They are a diurnal animals anyway whereas all other Salamanders would extremely rarely be found wandering around during the daytime hours.

Oops I am rambling...

Ichthyosaura apuanus eggs...

YELOW BELLIED TOAD PART 2 - BOMBINA SCABRA from GREECE

Now many years ago I saw some adult size Bombina that were very big. They were a very light sandy colour, think beach sand, had faint greenish flecks on the back too and with Orange-Yellow bellies. My father had them and I passed them up as hybrids though I even admitted at the time they WERE the most bizarre hybrids that I had ever seen and so nice I almost took some home!

Fast forward several years and I am standing in a school sports hall in Walsall just outside Birmingham at a IHS Show, International Herpetological Society, and someone I know has four of the exact same Bombina in a couple of small plastic PenPal type containers only the label states Bombina scabra!!

By the time I had gotten home that day I needed some bandages from all the serious kicking I gave myself!!

I mentioned to someone recently that there were four European species I would like to get and three of these were Bombina and one an Italian Alpine Newt (SEE NEXT POST). Fast forward a couple of weeks and I have now three of the four I mentioned all of which I would have had in the last 6 years despite my not keeping animals for over ten years!! Bizarre!

WELL...I say that I have three of the four and that I have scabra but I cannot say with absolute certainty. However I doubt the individual that had these would have the nominal variegata form. Added to this though small they look a little like pachypus right now, which is unusual and would expect scabra to at this size, and also the Yellow formed under the hind legs is looking an orange yellow already?! You can see this from the pictures below.

When they first leave the water that have some of the intense colours but normally restricted to the rear legs. You can see some washed out colour on the bellies and anything that is light and not a black spot WILL go yellow. The amount of the intense colours as well as the intensity develops with age but the time varies.

Nominal variegata and kolombatovici develop them very early on and even after just a month or two can have most of the colour and pattern they are going to have.

Now Bombina pachypus take somewhat longer and I suspect this is down to the fact that they are orange and not yellow. It is hard to get any youngsters to the same intensity and amount of colurs as the adults but after breeding mine several times years ago I did fathom out why and how.

Sunlight!

Thise in the know will know that feeding any young Bombina a natural aquatic food like Daphnia and Bloodworm will intensify the colours on the belly. Because these foods contain a natural carotene that they utilise to form the colours. However my pachypus young would never go the deep vivid tangerine colour of the original 6 specimens and nor would they acquire as much. That is until an accidental hybrid of pahypus and another turned up in my garden pond as a sub adult and orange underneath and I realised the missing factor was sunlight.

Bare in mind that rare for amphibians these are daytime animals, DIURNAL, and live in shallow ponds or puddles, or the flooded verges of larger ponds and lakes for Bombina bombina, so get sunlight most of the time. Yes it IS obvious when you think about it and yes I kicked myself for the last ten years for not realising this years before hand! LOL!

Anyway both the Bombina kolombatovici and the Bombina scabra have doubled in size since I had them. To help with the carotene intake they have been fed live Daphnia, Bloodworm as well as small crickets but only after the crickets have consumed a couple of lots of Spirulina Flakes. These feeding crickets the Spirulina is another way of getting Carotene into the toads, as Spirulina is an algae and has high amounts of it.

There WILL be two more parts on Yellow Bellied Toads in time as well as one of the European Fire Bellied Toad along with some Asian forms in due course.

 The above animal is smaller then the one below (scabra and kolombatovici respectively) and note how the colour of the above is more intense than the one below which is quite unusual. Kolombatovici are a more vivid and intense yellow than the nominate form of variegata by some margin. SO that orange look of the above picture tends to have me placing my money on Bombina scabra!

This could turn out to be a female as the males in both kolombatovici and pachypus have slightly more yellow than the females and it is slightly more vivid too. So if you pick up two and compare bellies and one is more vivid with less in the way of dark spots then chances are they are a male and female.

YELLOW BELLIED TOAD PART 1 - BOMBINA KOLOMBATOVICI

Very pleased I suddenly find myself with these and an old favourite!

Can back by way of a kid with a father that knows his stuff!! Think I know the chap, lol.

Anyway over the years I realized and have owned TWO TYPES of this species. One I had many years ago was very light Olive on the back while the one a few years back was dark Olive. All this type are green by the way and no despite what you may hear, be told or READ this is the only Yellow Bellied Toad that is green! I have personally seen 7 types of Yellow Bellied Toads in all, did write and complete a book on European Amphibians, and no normal, NOMINAL,  Yellow Bellied Toads ever have green on them. European Fire Bellied Toads, Bombina bombina, CAN be green and you get some very nice ones too. But not Bombina variegata. Bombina scabra is a light sandy tan, or at least of the ones I have seen are, and can have some small green flecks scattered about but that is all.

As you can see from the pictures below Bombina kolombatovici are green. I will get some better pictures and of the bellies too, this one is very young and not coloured up completely yet, but these can be a brilliant Canary yellow underneath that makes up about 70 to 90% of the underside. The dark spotting is normally bluish or pastel blue which they can also have around the edge of the flanks and legs. You can probably see this in the pictures.

Now there are four types of Yellow Bellied Toads that you will see listed and these are...

Bombina variegata (of which I have see at least two types of)
Bombina kolombatovici (of which I have seen and kept two types of)
Bombina pachypus (remarkably bright tangerine and blue bellied type from Italy and appears to be two forms)
Bombina scabra (largish and light tan type that tends to be orange from Greece SEE NEXT POST)

BOMBINA (VARIEGATA) KOLOMBATOVICII JULIAN YELLOW BELLIED TOAD

Hmm I should have many more pictures of these guys I was breeding regularly and I clearly have a great deal of photos to find?!

Still I am not complaining.

Unusual Yellow Bellied Toad this one ion that they are always olive and the bellies are very vivid yellow and around 80% or more. Also has some powder blues splashed about here and there.

There are TWO FORM of kolombatovicii a light form and a dark form and this one is the latter.