Southern banded newt
species of amphibian
The southern banded newt (Ommatotriton vittatus) is a species of salamander in the family Salamandridae found in Armenia (Lori Province of northern Armenia), Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey. This species has two subspecies - O. v. vittatus (found in Turkey, Syria, and Israel) and O. v. ciliensis (found in Turkey).
The southern banded newt is a medium-sized newt of 90–110 mm total body length. Females are often slightly smaller than males and have about half their weight but both males and females have a similar mean body condition index.
Habitat
The natural habitat of the species is water bodies of various types in temperate forests and grasslands, including rivers, ponds, and canals, and extending to water in caves, arable land and rural gardens. It has been found in water that has a temperature from 8.7 to 14.6 °C (average 11.4), a pH from 7.5 to 8, a GH (general hardness) from 3-18 (average 11.4), and a KH (carbonate hardness) from 3-18 (average 10.4). Generally they prefer higher altitudes (above 1500m) which have lower temperatures. When temperatures fall below 3.9 °C, they will go into hibernation and aestivating in dry, hot weather.
The public source identifies “Southern banded newt” as species of amphibian. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Southern, banded and newt.
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This entry incorporates text from “Southern banded newt” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.