BORN SURVIVOR


‘During the breeding season the males turn into mini dragons with impressive jagged crests’


involving a water ballet amid a sea of weed where eventually the male deposits a packet of sperm on the pond bottom, and then guides the female into a position whereby she picks it up, and eggs are fertilised inside her body. The next stage is just as ingenious: a few


hundred eggs are laid singly and she cleverly wraps each in a leaf using her hind legs, before securing it with a specially secreted glue-like substance to stick it down to protect it during development. Close observation may reveal these minute eggs but usually all that indicates their presence at the water’s edge is a neatly folded-over leaf corner; some eggs may be found among wa t e r -we e d . While it is impossible to tell the eggs of smooth a n d palmate


newts apart, those of the great crested are, like the creature itself, considerably larger. This is a mysterious world of efts (the name for the tiny newts) and metamorphs; pregnant females are descriptively referred to as ‘gravid’. Once the eft has become a fully grown newt it


will return the follow ing spring to its traditional breeding pond to spawn. The metamorphs some times remain in the water over the winter and do not complete their transformation until the next year. Newts are insectivorous; when water-bound


they feast on a range of insects and larvae, blood worms and water fl eas; on land they eat soft-bodied insects as well as earthworms and snails. (Newts in turn are hunted by fi sh, birds and several mammals including otters and foxes.) Great crested newts also consume the young and tadpoles of other newt species. When newts leave the water after breeding they may travel considerable distances in search of food and usually seek refuge and a safe place to hibernate in a dark, damp spot. Great crested newts in Europe are under


severe threat, and although the UK remains a stronghold for them, the population in Scotland is fragmented and sparse. Because of their rarity and importance, they are recognised as a UK Biodiversity Action Plan priority species classifi ed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red Data List. There are some known hotspots in the Moray Firth area and near Inverness, and also in the Central Belt, but the creatures struggle in Scotland not least because they are at the northernmost limit of their range,


WWW.SCOTTISHFIELD.CO.UK 149


VISHNEVSKIY VASILY/SHUTTERSTOCK


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