Red-bellied Newt
Acquired: Pet store
Gender: N/A
The Newt
When my daughter was nine she decided she wanted to keep a newt as a pet. We occasionally saw them in the wild near a small pond on the property but decided to get one at the pet store instead of disrupting the life of a wild one. We got an aquarium and put some flat rocks and features in the dry aquarium and also a newt swimming pool that had a shallow area that was easy to climb out of and also a deeper area for swimming.
We decided on a Red Spotted Newt who was a cool color and also native to our high altitude area. He turned out to be a very enjoyable low maintenance pet, requiring only a once a week tank cleaning and a once a week trip to the pet store for live crickets. We did have one mass cricket escape that made my daughter's bedroom kind of chirpy for a few nights.
In choosing any kind of newt or salamander as a pet it is good to remember that some species can live up to twenty or thirty years. That is a lot of cricket runs to the pet store! We happily kept our newt for about five years. When my daughter was fourteen she decided to find a new home for him. She said, "A newt just doesn't mean the same to a fourteen year old girl as it does to a nine year old girl." How true!
She quickly found a new home for him with the second grade class at school. I think they named him "Starlight."
