Today I shall write about newts. In a recent post I mentioned that both Claire and I had seen a newt in our garden pond. I can report great news: Claire has seen two together. She managed to photograph one. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that they are a breeding pair and our pond becomes a newt haven.
Because I wondered how the newts got to our pond, I just tried an internet search. I began typing how far can newts travel, and the suggested questions were filled in by yahoo. The fourth suggestion was: “how far can newts travel in space?” I thought they might have just come from a neighbour’s pond!
ARC-Trust provide interesting information about garden reptiles and amphibians. Frogs, toads, and newts migrate between garden ponds. Frog spawn is an important food source for young newts, so hopefully we may get some frogs in our pond too.
I’m surprised at how excited I am by our newts. It’s just that I have such happy childhood memories of playing with newts in a friend’s garden pond. They’re such beautiful, tiny dragons. I shan’t be handling our newts, but I will be looking out for them whenever I pass the pond.
My curiosity has overcome me, so I clicked on the links about newts in space. It took me to the envirobites page, where I discovered that many newts have been to space. Apparently the Iberian ribbed newt has a fantastic ability to replace virtually any part of its body that is damaged. Scientists have launched many of these newts into space for experimental purposes. The newts have regrown surgically removed retinas way faster in space than they were able to on earth. I honestly didn’t expect to learn that today, I was just excited about our newts. Isn’t curiosity a wonderful thing, even if it does kill cats.