A year in the life of a Great Crest Newt

An adult great crested newt can live for up to fifteen years and during its lifetime it goes through a fairly predictable life cycle. The newt year can begin as early as late January when with after the first frost free days of the year the newts stir from hibernation and head to the ponds to breed.

Their movement is very much influenced by temperature and rainfall and the majority of newts tend to move much later arriving at the ponds by mid March. Great crested newts are “ectotherms” in that they rely on external heat sources to help them raise their body temperature enough to allow them to move. Normally, the air temperature needs to be above 5°C  before the newts will move and a rain event will also help. They move mainly at night to avoid predation and help conserve moisture loss from their permeable skins. Compared with frogs and toads, which tend to have almost mass migrations in a short period of time to the breeding ponds, the newt migration to the ponds is much more gradual affair.

 Courtship and egg-laying normally lasts from mid-March to mid-May and during this time, adult males attract females by undertaking a complicated courtship ‘dance’. Sometimes, if you are lucky you can see this in the ponds.

The female newt lays eggs individually, mostly on the leaves of submerged plants, which she careful wraps in a package. After about three weeks the larvae hatch out and then spend the next two to three months developing into juveniles, called efts. During this time they feed on a range of pond life from  small crustaceans through to  tadpoles and other newt larvae!!

By late May the adult newts have left the breeding ponds, with the males tending to remain longer than the females. Occasionally they may return to feed, but they spend most of their time on land. During this time they will need  refuge from extremes of weather. During the daytime they will rest in dense vegetation, under refuges, or underground. Then at night they will come out to feed, taking a range of invertebrate prey.

By early August, the larvae which have now metamorphosed from their aquatic larval phase to efts, begin to emerge from the pond and this can last  for up to two months. It will take the immature newts between two and four years to reach sexual maturity and during this time they will be largely terrestrial (based on land).

By late September adults and immature newts are looking for a place to hibernate for the winter. They crawl into anywhere that will offer them protection from frost and winter flooding. Often these are underground amongst tree roots, in mammal burrows, or above ground under suitable refuges like deadwood or rubble piles.

Hibernation may last from October through to February when the cycle of life starts all over again.

Based on the information from the Great Crested Newt Mitigation Guidelines – English Nature 2001