| Keywords: | banded newt, Ommatotriton ophryticus, reproductive biology, Northwestern Caucasus, Karachayevo-Cherkessia.
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| Abstracts: | The banded newt, Ommatotriton ophryticus (Berthold, 1846) is narrow areal vulnerable species, endemic of Colchis forests in the Western Caucasus. This species listed in the Red Data Book of the Russian Federation and regional Red Data Books (of Krasnodar Krai, the Republic of Adygea, and the Karachay-Cherkess Republic). To develop effective methods of conservation of the banded newt in nature and in laboratory setting it is necessary to study its reproductive biology. The article presents the data on the reproduction of four pairs of the banded newt from the valley of the Bolshaya Laba River (Urupskiy District of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic). The animals were caught during the reproductive migration to the ponds in the third week of March 2015. After catching the newts were kept in water-filled containers at the temperature regime of 5–15 °C and the photoperiod was 16 hours. The animals were fed with larvae of chironomids. The first oviposition occurred on 6 April, the latest – on June 13. The duration of the spawning season at different females was 11–69 days. For the entire reproductive period, the females laid 14–352 eggs of 2,0–2,6 × 3,1–3,6 mm. The duration of incubation was from 8 to 20 days, and the whole embryogenesis process from laying eggs to transition of larvae to exogenous food lasted 12–25 days. The total length of the prelarvae immediately after hatching – 10,0–10,5 mm, and the larvae during the transition to the exogenous feeding – 10,3–10,9 mm. The minimum duration of larval development in laboratory setting was equal to 83 days. The body length of young newts when they go out of the water was 16,1–19,1 mm, and the tail – 12,0–14,8 mm.
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