Alpine newt
Ichthyosaura alpestris
— Where the name comes from
Ichthyosaura is “fish lizard”, from ichthýs and saûra: the name had been coined in the nineteenth century for a fossil marine reptile and was later dug out again for this newt, by a leap of logic nobody has ever really defended. Alpestris names the Alps, though the species lives from the Netherlands to Greece and more in the lowlands than at altitude.
— Facts
- Group
- Amphibians · Amphibia
- Order
- Salamanders
- Habitat
- Mountain pools and tarns, forest ponds, cattle troughs
- Range
- Central and southern Europe
- Size
- 7–12 cm, 3–6 g
- Diet
- Insect larvae, tadpoles, eggs, freshwater crustaceans
- Lifespan
- 20 years
— Characteristics
- 01
The belly is bright orange and unspotted, unlike other newts.
- 02
It breeds even in glacial tarns above two thousand metres.
- 03
In water the male turns blue-grey with a silver band along the flanks.
— What sets it apart
In some populations it never quite grows up. In cold, food-poor tarns — in the Dinaric Alps, in the Balkans, in a few Alpine hollows — the adults keep the external gills and tail fin of the larva and breed while staying aquatic all their lives, never completing metamorphosis. It is the same phenomenon as the Mexican axolotl, here reversible: if the pool dries or warms, those same individuals finish the transformation and walk away.
