Alpine crested newt
| Alpine crested newt | ||||||||||||
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Triturus carnifex , male in traditional costume |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Triturus carnifex | ||||||||||||
| ( Laurenti , 1768) |
The Alpine crested newt ( Triturus carnifex ), also known as the Italian crested newt, is a tailed amphibian from the family of real salamanders . It belongs to the genus Triturus and the species group of the crested newts ( Triturus cristatus - "super species"). Until the 1980s it was only treated as a subspecies of the then "only" crested newt. In Germany, the species is found at most in the extreme southeast.
features
It is a broad-headed, quite large newt. It reaches body lengths similar to that of the northern crested newt ( Triturus cristatus ) - on average about 12 to 13 centimeters; in females no more than 20 centimeters. During the mating season, the males develop a back crest that is not as high or as strongly jagged as the northern crested newt or the Danube crested newt . The crest is separated from the tail edge by an incision - as with all crested newts (but compare: pond newt ). The upper side appears light brownish-gray to dark brown, with dark round spots and is relatively smooth-skinned. Females in traditional costume and young animals often have a yellowish longitudinal line on their backs. The throat is dotted with white, the belly yellow or orange with dark, particularly "faded" looking, not sharply delineated spots. In contrast to the other crested newt species, the flanks are hardly spotted white. In particular, the blurred stains and the lack of white dots on the sides are the most important external identifying features.
Habitat, way of life
During the mating season in spring and sometimes also over the summer, the animals stay in perennial , herbaceous pools and ponds. Great crested newts in general are seasonally more strongly bound to the water than other water newts (compare on this and other behaviors: Northern great crested newt ).
Alpine crested newts, like all amphibians, feed on living animals that are smaller than themselves, mainly worms , insects and spiders .
distribution
The main distribution of the nominate form of the Alpine crested newt is almost the entire Italian boot and radiates to the Swiss Ticino (in the Geneva area the species was also abandoned), to southern and eastern Austria (especially Carinthia and Styria ; in Lower Austria north to the Danube and east to Vienna ) and to Slovenia and northwestern Croatia . The outermost south-eastern edge of Bavaria in Germany is also reached via Linz and Salzburg . The Berchtesgadener Land is to be mentioned here with individual sites; the highest should be at 780 m . According to recent research, however, it is doubtful whether these are actually genetically "real" Alpine crested newts. Rather, it is now assumed that mainly or even exclusively hybrids of Triturus carnifex and Triturus cristatus are located there.
The altitude distribution of the Alpine crested newt reaches almost 1900 m in Italy. In this country it can be observed that the populations in the south ( Campania , Apulia , Basilicata , Calabria ) are genetically much more homogeneous than those further north. This is explained with after ice age migrations.
The previous subspecies Triturus carnifex macedonicus is - probably spatially separated from Triturus carnifex carnifex - in the former Yugoslavia , especially in Bosnia-Herzegovina , Montenegro , southern Serbia and northern Macedonia as well as in Albania and northwestern Greece . In view of the complicated territorial and species division of the great crested newt superspecies in this area, the entire Balkans has not yet been fully explored. New systematic overviews have given the previous subspecies its own species status: Triturus macedonicus (for example: " Macedonian crested newt ").
Hazard and protection
In the 1998 Red List of Endangered Species in Germany, the Alpine crested newt was classified as “critically endangered”. However, this assessment presupposed that the species actually occurs in Germany, which has since become questionable (see above). In the 2009 version, the Alpine crested newt was therefore no longer taken into account.
Legal protection status (selection)
- Habitats Directive : Annexes II and IV (special protected areas are to be designated / species to be strictly protected)
- Federal Nature Conservation Act (BNatSchG): strictly protected
National Red List classifications (selection)
- Red list of Austria: VU (corresponds to: endangered)
- Red list of Switzerland: EN (corresponds to: highly endangered)
swell
literature
- Andreas Nöllert, Christel Nöllert: The amphibians of Europe. Franckh-Kosmos, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-440-06340-2
- Burkhard Thiesmeier, Alexander Kupfer: The crested newt . A water dragon in danger. Zeitschrift für Feldherpetologie, Supplement 1, Laurenti-Verlag, Bochum 2000, ISBN 3-933066-06-9
Individual evidence
- ↑ Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (ed.): Red list of endangered animals, plants and fungi in Germany 1: Vertebrates. Landwirtschaftsverlag, Münster 2009, ISBN 978-3784350332
- ↑ Alpen-Kammmolch at www.wisia.de
- ↑ Online overview at www.amphibienschutz.de
Web links
- Triturus carnifex at Fauna Europaea
- Photos of the Alpine crested newt at www.herp.it
- www.amphibienschutz.de
- Information on the crested newt species in Austria at www.herpetofauna.at ( Memento from August 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- Distribution map at iucnredlist.org (Note: The separate area between Serbia and Greece refers to Triturus macedonicus !)
- Entry of the Alpine crested newt in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species