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00:00 Newts mating
00:05 I've been keeping 3 adult Red-spotted (Eastern) newts in this tank since September 2022.
Here you can see two newts engaged in mating.
My wild caught newts started mating the same week I brought them home - in September.
The water room temperature and abundance of live food in the tank could be the triggers.
The male clings to the female with his rear legs around her neck.
Interestingly, male newts use the same wrestling grip in fights I observed and shared with you previously.
This two males have been competing for the right to mate with the only female in this tank.
02:51 have to replay this part in slow motion.
The bully male is chasing the female away from the light-green male.
The dark-green male is... very aggressive toward the female.
The female moves behind the rock back closer to the first male.
04:03 I call this female newt - SheShy.
SheShy is the most friendly newt among all.
Red-spotted newts exabit a very complicated behavior as you can see.
Here you can take a close look at the female newt.
And she is about a half of an inch shorter than my male newts.
05:11 Oh, look! She comes around to watch the males fight!
Males have slightly wider tails to sport with.
Red-spotted newts are toothless though they are very skillful wrestlers.
Newts normally move slowly, but they attack lightning fast.
06:17 You can see the dark-green male on the right is getting ready to launch at the female.
08:50 I've seen newts do face-to-face sniffing each other during hunting.
I think it's interesting that the male newt chooses to fight and hunt over an opportunity to mate.
10:15 I've been feeding Grindal worms to my fish about 1-2 times a week.
This time I am going to drop a lot of Grindal worms to give my newts a chance to try them.
10:54 Ah! The dark-green male newt intercepted her!
The female newt resists, but... the male newt grabbed her very tight.
Though, we get a clear view to watch how Red-spotted newts mate!
Notice how thoroughly the male is working to spread his pheromones around the female.
The other male spreads his charm pheromones to distract the female from the first male.
15:10 Amplexus is a basically the mating embrace that even the male himself may find difficult to break.
15:49 Well anyway, not to punish the male, but for sake of learning I will try to separate them now.
I am using a toothbrush to push the male off of the female.
17:03 Finally! The male released the hold and ran away leaving the female free.
And the female newt is coming right back to that male.
Wow...his pheromones clearly took hold on her no matter how much she resisted him previously.
The male is not showing any interest in mating now.
Well, it was not the first time my newts mate and it's sure not the last one.
My newts have been mating everyday for about two months.
18:57 Red-spotted newts mate usually in the first half of the day.
Here you can see the male is already on the top in the mating position.
Red-spotted males take their time mating - it could last for up to an hour!
Yeah, doping the female with pheromones gives the male newt a huge advantage over the competitor.
22:43 In this example the mating took about 50 minutes for this couple.
Here you can see the couple is already getting to the culmination point of the mating.
The male noticeably intensifies his tail waving.
The female is very agitated and wrestling out.
23:36 The mating male is about to deposit his sperm.
The female is at full attention.
She is still doped with the pheromones of this male.
But the effect of pheromones is wearing out and the other male may interfere at any time.
Ta-dam!
The male deposited his sperm pocket.
Now it is up to the female to take or leave the sperms...
The other male may distract the female and even drop his own sperm instead for the female to pick up.
Well, my friendly female newt SheShy left this sperm pocket untouched.
That is the end game of this almost an hour long mating.
But it is not the end of the mating season for my newts yet.
Based on my observations I would have to make some adjustments in the tank and the care for my newts.
More about it in future videos.
Have fun and happy newts :)

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