Amphibians
Palmate Newt
Lissotriton helveticus · also called webbed newt
Shine a torch into a heathland pool on a mild spring night in western Europe and you may see the smallest of the region’s newts walking across the bottom: the palmate newt, a slight, olive-brown amphibian whose breeding males wear black webbed gloves on their back feet and trail a fine thread from the tail.
Overview
Lissotriton helveticus is the smallest newt in Britain and one of the smallest in Europe, about 7 to 9 cm long. It is olive or yellow-brown with darker mottling, a pale unspotted throat, and often a faint dark stripe through the eye. It lives across western Europe, breeding in small still water bodies in spring and spending the rest of the year on land in damp woods and heathland.
The breeding male
Each spring the male grows the features that name the species: black webbing between the toes of the hind feet, a low, straight-edged crest along the back, and a short filament from the tail tip. He uses all of them in an underwater courtship display, arching his body in front of a female and fanning pheromones toward her with his tail. After breeding, the webs shrink and the crest is reabsorbed.
A specialist in poor water
The palmate newt handles acidic, nutrient-poor water better than other newts, which makes it the characteristic newt of heaths, bogs, moorland, and mountains — in the Pyrenees it breeds in lakes above 2,000 m. The best way to tell it from the very similar smooth newt is the throat: plain and pale in the palmate newt, dark-spotted in the smooth newt.
Status
The palmate newt is Least Concern, common and widespread, though local populations vanish when small ponds are drained, filled, stocked with fish, or polluted. Digging new ponds is the most effective help.
Palmate Newt: common questions
How do you tell a palmate newt from a smooth newt?
They are very alike, and in much of Britain and western Europe they share the same ponds. The most reliable check is the throat. Hold or photograph the newt from below, and a palmate newt has a plain, pale pink or pale yellow throat with no spots, while a smooth newt has a throat that is clearly spotted with dark marks. In the breeding season a male palmate newt is easier still, with obvious black webs between the toes of the hind feet, a low straight-edged crest rather than the smooth newt's wavy one, and a short thread projecting from the tail tip. Females and land-phase animals are harder and often need the throat check.
Why does the male palmate newt have webbed feet and a tail filament?
Both are breeding features grown fresh each spring and used in courtship. The male displays to the female underwater by standing in front of her, arching his body, and fanning his tail to waft pheromones toward her, and the enlarged, dark, webbed hind feet and the low body crest make the display more visible and exaggerate his outline. The fine filament at the tip of the tail, sometimes called the tail thread, is unique to this species among the newts of the region and is thought to be part of the same visual signalling. After the breeding season the webs shrink, the crest is reabsorbed, and the filament is usually lost.
Where is the best place to find palmate newts?
Look in and around small, still, fish-free water bodies in acidic or nutrient-poor landscapes. Palmate newts are the typical newt of lowland heaths, upland moors, bogs, coniferous plantations, and mountain country, and they will also use garden ponds, forest ditches, and flooded ruts on woodland tracks. During the breeding months, roughly March to June, a torch shone into a shallow pond after dark often picks them out walking on the bottom or hanging in the water. For the rest of the year, carefully lifting logs and flat stones in damp woodland or hedge banks nearby is the usual method.
Are palmate newts protected?
In Britain the palmate newt, like the smooth newt, receives partial legal protection that makes it an offence to sell or trade wild animals, but unlike the great crested newt it is not protected against disturbance or habitat damage, because it remains common and widespread. It is not a species that blocks development or requires survey work in the way the great crested newt does. That said, it depends entirely on the survival of small ponds and clean breeding water, so filling in ponds, stocking them with fish, or polluting them removes local populations, and pond creation is the single most useful thing for the species.