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Palmate or Smooth? |
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Donny
Senior Member Joined: 11 May 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 70 |
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Posted: 30 Jul 2004 at 6:51pm |
Sorry, no pics...just something I have wondered about for a long time. It is said that it is difficult to distinguish between females of the above mentioned species, but I have never found this to be the case. Where I live, Smooth newts have orange bellies with large spots, and Palmates have yellow bellies with none or a very few small spots..in addition, Palmate Newts here are always lighter coloured...maybe it's just my local population...any of you experts have trouble telling between the two? |
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test
Member Joined: 29 Apr 2008 Status: Offline Points: 1 |
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Hi Donny, I wouldn't have much problem telling them apart when in the hand, the difficulty of field identification relates more to torch survey when it is very difficult to be sure which you have seen without capture, or identification by inexperienced people. I usually look at the throat, it's pinkier and more translucent in palmates and usually has very few or no spots. I've seen the odd individual that I wasn't all that sure about, particularly in the terrestrial stage. |
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frogworlduk
Senior Member Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 73 |
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although its probably wrong i often find that smooth and palmates can betold apart by the lines of spots on the backs.smooths have two lines running down it with spots that are forming a near perfect line. whereas palmates have two lines with spots that don't touch and are all over the place.
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