We surprised each other in the garden today. Best guess is Notopthalmus viridescens, but the species has a lot of variation within the population apparently.
this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2026
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People who know these kinds of things are particularly neat to me (like you!) I know they have a long life cycle if they make good decisions but didn't realize they were considered different creatures based on their developmental stage
In the Newts case, it is because of the metamorphosis. That process changes the larvaes gills to juvenile lungs, and then the second metamorphosis replaces the juveniles lungs with adult gills again. This forces the change of habitat, since you gotta match the stomping grounds with the plumbing and also a change of food. It truly is a different lifeform with a different skillset, different needs and different goals at each stage.
A lifeform figuring out to drastically reform its own body twice over its campaign just doesn't seem to be an idea that would spawn from nature, to me anyway. It's one of the best argument for intelligent design in my opinion. Truly remarkable.
I land more on the "ten iterations on every iteration that works" model of evolutionary pressures and the arms/gills race that ensues but I think this is appropriate regardless