Friday night is Palmate night!

Taking a night off from professional newt surveys, we hosted an event for the Friends of Seckar Wood and North, East and West Yorkshire Amphibian and Reptile Group, surveying ponds at Seckar Wood for the locally scarce palmate newt (Lissotriton helveticus).

Slightly smaller than the much more common smooth newt (Lissotriton vulgaris), they only a occur in a handful of ponds in the Wakefield district, having a generally more westerly distribution across the UK. They favour ponds with neutral to very slightly acidic pH, often associated with heathland, moorland and open woodland (all habitats present in Seckar Wood!).

The male has webbed hind feet as well as a small filament at the end of the tail. The female looks superficially like a smooth newt but lacks spots under the chin and has a pale mark above each of the hind legs.

Our efforts on Friday evening were rewarded with views of several palmate newts by torchlight. Bottle traps were left overnight but only produced a single male who was quite cooperative in posing for a photograph.



Male palmate newt from Seckar Wood LNR SSSI