Temporal range: Late Miocene–Recent
|A male Alpine Newt|
During the mating season early in the year, the males exhibit dark-blue colouring on their backs; their flanks have white-black-spotted stripes below sky-blue stripes, and their bellies are bright orange. The females, in water camouflage, are mottled brown and have some weak spotting on their backs. The biggest of the males can reach up to 9 cm, and the females up to 12 cm in length. After the mating season, they return their original color of mottled brown.
Life and habitat
Alpine newts typically inhabit forests with good access to water in hilly to mountainous regions. They are mostly absent in forest-poor areas. They populate well in thick deciduous forests, as well as parkland and natural gardens. Outside the spawning season, Alpine newts live terrestrially. During the day it stays in all kinds of undergrowth, but during the mating season in cool water (forest pools, artificial pools). After the adults come out of winter dormancy, they migrate to their spawning pools.
Alpine newts were originally confined to Central Europe and mountainous Southern Europe, as well as an isolated area on the northern Iberian Peninsula. The species was introduced to southern England in the 1930s and several populations have become established as far north as Sunderland.
The alpine newt was formerly placed within the genus Triturus. García-París et al. divided the genus Triturus, placing the alpine newt into its own genus Mesotriton. Later, Mesotriton was postulated to be a junior synonym of Ichthyosaura. Ten subspecies of the alpine newt are recognized (some only with neotenic forms):
- I. a. alpestris (Laurenti, 1768) alpine newt
- I. a. apuanus (Gray, 1850) Italian alpine newt
- I. a. cyreni (Mertens & Muller, 1940) Spanish alpine newt
- I. a. inexpectatus (Dubois & Breuil, 1983) Calabrian alpine newt
- I. a. lacusnigri (Dely, 1960) Yugoslavian alpine newt
- I. a. montenegrinus (Radovanovic, 1951) Montenegran alpine newt
- I. a. piperianus (Radovanovic, 1961)
- I. a. reiseri (Schreiber, 1912) Bosnian alpine newt
- I. a. serdarus (Radovanovic, 1961)
- I. a. veluchiensis (Wolterstorff, 1935) Greek alpine newt
- Arntzen, J.W. et al. (2006). Triturus alpestris. In: IUCN 2008. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Retrieved 2009-02-03.
- Bond, I. & Haydock, G. 2008. The Alpine Newt in northern England. Herpetological Bulletin 104: 4-6
- García-París, M., A. Montori, and P. Herrero. 2004. Amphibia: Lissamphibia. Fauna Iberica Vol. 24. Madrid: Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales and Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.
- Josef F. Schmidtler. 2007. Die Wurzeln einer bayrischen Herpetofaunistik im 18. und beginnenden 19. Jahrhundert. Zeitschrift f. Feldherpetologie 14: 93–119. Laurenti, Bielefeld. (PDF online, in German; see page 105)
- Schoch, R. R.; Rasser, M. W. (2013). "A new salamandrid from the Miocene Randeck Maar, Germany". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 33: 58. doi:10.1080/02724634.2012.716113.
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