SOME THINGS AT A FRIEND'S HOUSE

An aquarium and a few Salamandra salamandra terrestris larvae, with some fastuosa in there somewhere.

COMMON SNAPPING TURTLE EATING MOUSE

A friend of mine got hold of this Common Snapper who then sold it to another friend of mine who put it in a one metre long tank. Same tank I have as a terrarium for my Fire Salamanders.

SOME NEW SHOP FISH

A few fish at my mates shop in Enfield ..

Some small to medium size Angels, always a popular fish among tropical fish enthusiasts ..

While you there why don't you P-P-P-P-Pick up a Penguin?! (groaner I know!)

THE NEW PHOTOGRAPHIC TOOL NIKON P900

After a long, long wait and my Sony Cybershot being technically broken for about 6 months I have finally gotten around to replacing it!

My Sony has a 50x zoom, which I cannot use anything close to any longer and has now been relegated to being permanently attached to a tripod for filming in the house. As short range it can still manage to do.

After an arduous journey and battle with London's public transport, some stupid mistakes and several times where I had to stop and hand near my pocket to grab my phone and call for an ambulance, I managed to somehow struggle through it and find the camera!

Rather oddly I had left the address behind of the Camera World store I was aiming for and though I knew its rough location I was a bit worried about ending up in hospital so headed for faithful old Jessops!

Before even exiting the station at Russell Square on the way there I was slumped against a wall on a staircase!

Only when I got to where Jessops was the last time I was in there ... it was not there!

That is the other problem with Fibromyalgia ... memory problems! I had forgotten to take the address to Camera World with me and never thought of checking to see if Jessops was still at the location it was when I was last in the in New Oxford Street! Dumb-arse!

I do not know if the slumping against the wall ore the burning, tingling feelings I had for thirty minutes afterwards was anything to do with Fibromyalgia, lack of blood pressure pills or something else? Or just an unfit bastard? Was a bit rough though, which means a lot of i say that.

Walking up Oxford Street instead of heading back into Tottenham Court Road, where some loom directed me, I walked past some scaffolding and there was a PC World! I know, I know I have had a refurbished item from them and it could have happened again. But I just wandered in just to see if they had a display one. They did. It was huge!

I saw an older gentleman who looked Indian standing  looking miserable. I got the impression he might not be happy as all the younger sales people probably intercepted any sales and I asked "Well you look like your not doing much?"

After initial shock someone asked him something and walking him tot he camera I asked if they had any in stock. They did. He got the box out, I checked for any seals over the lid of the box, dead give-away to refurbished items, and there were none.

Often there are these little seals that are clear but when pulled off say the word 'void' in gold that magically appear.

I had these on three Nikon cameras I bought a few years back from Argos. Nikon do not put any seals on their box and Argos swore blind they did not do it and stated it was Nikon. Wrong.

I also had an Olympus camera that went wrong in a line of consecutively received and amounting to four cameras from Argos.

I had one professional Corsair Vengeance Keyboard with a large dent in the aluminium base plate from PC World, just in case you were wondering. Oddly the Roccas Ryos keyboard I exhhanged that one for and around 8 months down the line started missing keystroke now and then and also adding one, or even bloody two extra keystrokes! So I guess we can safely take a stab in the dark about where that came from?

To be fair the Sony Cybershot came from PC World and that was new. It ias also the only thing that I have bought that has worked flawlessly for well over two years until it got dropped on its head and it still works to a degree!

Anyhoo ...

Thought you would like to see the new camera?

Nikon Coolpix P900 ....

FULLY DEVELOPED PYRENEAN FIRE SALAMANDER BIRTH

It would appear that an opinion I had regarding the large form of Pyrenean Fire Salamanders from several years ago is wrong.

Several of the Salamandra genus give birth to fully formed baby salamanders (i.e. minus gills and terrestrial). But these are all smaller species of Salamandra atra, Salamandra atra aurorae, Salamandra bernardezi, Salamandra alfredschimdti, Salamandra lanzai and an undescribed one, as far as I know, from Northern Morroco, Ceuta, otherwise described as Salamandra algira.

I should point out that I am aware of at least four, seem to recall a fifth, different Fire Salamanders from North Africa from one small one with yellow like bernardezi like qualities, a very nice largely cherry red and yellow large form from the Atlas mountains of Morroco, an almost completely black one I have seen and a rather long and gangley one from near Algeria.

I had not known of a larger type of Salamandra salamandra to produce fully formed young ... until now with my Salamandra salamandra fastuosa. I should now point out that there are two very different forms of fastuosa. Both have continuous bands running from the head to the tails. One smaller with uniform bands and one much bigger and with yellow spots and markings breaking up the black bands. The yellow bands are normally wider than the smaller form too.

I have always noted that in these forms the yellow is always noticeably greater in width in the males than the females.

Well after checking my terrarium for more larvae something was spotted on my peripheral vision and I thought "well if I did not know better I would have sworn that was a young salamander!" only when I shifted and looked down ... it was! Lol.

So I managed to find five of them, though one was still-born, and exposed one pair of the adults with the female looking particularly bulbous!

Here is a video ..

BIRTH OF PYRENEAN FIRE SALAMANDERS (Salamandra salamandra fastusoa) LARGE FORM

Well I seem to be getting things done without actually focusing on them!

In my terrarium I noticed a male putting in a daytime showing, a little odd unless they are ... amorous, and then a females tail dangling over the edge of the pond area.

The ferns, particularly the Maidenhair Fern, was a little overgrown and I could only see a small part of the actual body of water. Still I looked through the small gap anyway and as I peered carefully I thought I could make out the outline of a very small head submerged in the water. As I was looking intently to see if this might be what I thought it was I noticed a banana like shape that had four structures at either and and thought 'they are legs! I am sure of it!' and due to the angle not belonging to the head shape I first spotted.

So I decided to go in and have a look but then thought about setting up the camera on a tripod, to get a video of me guessing and then pulling out any salamander larvae, or tadpoles.

Sure enough I was correct in my assumptions and the video got uploaded, now I am uploading other videos on me getting into vaping! Yes I went from cigarettes to vaping recently and am quite hooked on all the technology available, as you will se in the next two posts, lol.

Anyway here are just two videos of a male Pyrenean (or Lourdes) Fire Salamander and then the one of my netting out some babies with their feathery gills, think tiny Axolotls as that is in essence, waht they are .. well .. sort of, just different species, lol ..

Male making daylight appearance ...

Me fishing out salamander larvae I think I spotted the outlines of lol ...

BUILDING A TERRARIUM FOR SALAMANDERS (Part 3 of 3)

OK so there might be a fourth part to this but I will call it an update.

As I was looking and filming what was supposed to be the finished article I saw ... things I would like to ... alter and others I would like to add.

Well .. I did not find my Button Fern at any rate and might not be for a couple of months yet so was never really going to be finished quite so soon anyway.

So what I have done thus far to .. almost .. finish the terrarium off is ..

• Add a one metre long moss covered log to the back at the top, tied with cable ties onto a support
• Add a Mentha alpine plant to the right hand side in front of the boggy area near front glass
• Add a Thymus alpine plant to the left side on the right of the cork cave entrance
• Add a semi-aquatic/aquatic plant, Hemianthus or Baby Tears, to the boggy area itself
• Add a few Lichen covered branches and couple ore Moss covered logs
• Spun the Rabbit Tracks Prayer Plant around to get more light to other areas and show the leaves off better

So it is .. mostly done.

As well as wanting to add the Button Fern ... that ... Prayer Plant being tropical is bugging me. So I might replace it with a bigger Fern ... or something else? We will see what turns up on y radar.

I am also looking at some types of aquatic moss, like Versicularia ferrieii or the one called Christmas Moss, cannot remember Latin. I have Versicularia dubyana in my metre long aquarium that grows quite well and may have some in the garden, I may use that? It can grow out of water too and changes to look like a normal Moss. Might use it to cover the last bits of plastic.

Also I am not too happy with some of the cork tiles showing either ... a little too much in places. I might attach a plant, or plants, that will sort of drape down the back. Weeping Fig or similar?

Doing this caused me some hassle with my ... afflictions, lol. But that is to be expected when something you do not see for years that you want suddenly becomes available!

I might have had to wait another couple of years or travel to a show in Europe to acquire these Pyrenean Fire Salamanders myself. Provided they were the right form that is. The other forms are nice ... but these are just so much bigger and better looking and have more yellow.

Trust me when I say I got the runts of the pack as many had been offered what was available before I got mine.

Maybe a year from now I might have many youngsters to grow on and periodic updates ... or more correctly 'uploads' of films to YouTube to show this will be taking place?

I do not know if I will add any other species to this terrarium ... it is possible but to have something I find interesting enough to buy that likes this environment will be ... rare. Young European Tree Frogs or better Stripeless Tree Frogs, Hyla meridionalis, is the only real possibility.

I do like some of the Ensatina's from North America and the Painted one, escholtzii, would be damned nice!

Hmm and another cage set up for Atelopus? Damn it! No, no, no! Not yet anyway, lol. God knows where I would get a hold of Atelopus! Had some years ago, love the things.

It is a bad time of year to find anything else.

However I would like to go to Europe in the Spring, 2016, and meet a few people and bring back a few select species. Need a bigger house, though!

Remember water, or rather where you get it, is vital to keeping the plants, or at least many of them, growing and healthy. Rain water collected into a large container using a device that costs around £6 to £8 and attaches to your drain pipes, if they are plastic that is. Then add a little liquefied Seaweed plant feed.

If I can use Seaweed on Orchids with great effect then you can use it on anything. I also use the Seaweed and the Orchid food in my aquarium, much to one brother's shock. No chemicals you see.

Anyway here is the video of the almost finished article ..