Alpine Newts

In ancient Greek mythology, Triton was a sea deity, the son of Poseidon. Sculptors and painters have depicted him in human form down to his waist. The rest of his body is shown as a fish’s tail. When his father issued the command, he blew into a conch shell trumpet. At this bellowing sound the tempests calmed down as if by a miracle, and the grateful sailors gave thanks to all the gods of Olympus, to Poseidon in particular, and, of course, did not overlook Triton.

There are a whole group of salamanders called Triturus or, commonly, newts. It seems hard to find any points of resemblance between the Greek deity and the newt, except that the newt leads a double life, spending most of it on land, and the other part living in the water.

One day in 1760, Lazaro Spallanzani, one of the great Italian biologists of that age, made a curious experiment. The subject was on the operating table: a magnificent newt, who seemed uncomfortable and unhappy so far from its native lake. Perhaps it was suspicious of the intentions of the illustrious operator, but the operation, although it was to cause a stir in the scientific world, promised the newt only pain.

What happened was that Spallanzani, armed with lancet and forceps, amputated the newt’s limbs and then removed a large portion of its eyeballs—a veritable massacre! But miraculously, at the end of the two months, to the enormous satisfaction of the scientist (and of the animal too, no doubt) the newt was completely recovered. Not only had its amputated limbs grown back, but its eyeballs had formed anew.

Some time later another scientist froze a newt, producing apparent death, and later brought it back to life. So it is not surprising then to find the alpine newt in little lakes in the Alps, at altitudes of seven thousand feet or more. There are other kinds of newts in Europe and in North America. One of the most common in the United States is the spotted newt. It lives in water during the early stages of its life, breathing through gills. Eventually its lungs develop and it becomes a land dweller for two or three years. During this time it is called a “red eft” because of its color.When it is ready to mate, it returns to water where it remains for the rest of its life. Its color changes to olive-green. These newts eat water insects and are especially helpful to man because they eat great numbers of mosquito larvae.

Alpine Newts Pictures