In 2017, I adopted a very old Japanese Fire-bellied Newt (Cynops pyrrhogaster). I was a little skeptical at first, when the previous owner of the newt, Marg Dalgarno, contacted me at the pet store where I worked (Okanagan Pet City in Kelowna, British Columbia), looking to rehome a newt that was supposedly around 40 years old. Her family purchased the newt in 1979, in Kelowna, at a pet store in the Mission Park Shopping Centre called Noah’s Ark (personal communications with Marg Dalgarno and her son Steve Dalgarno). The newt would have likely been at least two or three years old at the time it was purchased as a young adult. I had heard of this species living into their thirties, but I was unaware of any living over 40 years. I wondered if this might be the oldest newt in the world and started doing some research on the longevity of the species.
The life expectancy for Japanese Fire-bellied Newts is generally listed as about 25 years. However, there have been reports of them living into their thirties and forties, and it appears this may be more common than previously thought. Four specimens over the age of 47, including two specimens estimated to be at least 50 years old, were documented alive in 2023 (Köhler et al. 2023). One of the 47-year-old newts died in 2023, and the two older newts died in 2023 and 2024, at the estimated ages of at least 50 years and 51 years. One of those four newts (obtained as a freshly metamorphosed juvenile eft in 1975) is still alive and doing well at about 50 years of age (Henry Janssen, personal communication, April 17, 2025). The newt I have is likely close to 49 years old, and possibly older, making her one of the oldest newts ever reported.
Marg, the newt’s previous owner, periodically calls me wondering how the newt is doing. She is always amazed to hear that the newt is still alive. I asked her, “How do you think the newt got to be so old?” She replied, “Oh, I don’t know how, probably just good care and good genes.” For most of its life, the newt was fed a diet that consisted primarily of earth worms. Marg would go to their neighbours' garden and dig worms out of their compost. She jokes that after nearly four decades, she was getting a little tired of digging for worms. The newt is very responsive, and she enjoys being fed, handled and talked to. Marg said she would often talk to the newt as it crawled up her arm. I am happy to report that the newt is doing well, and I will be taking extra good care of her as she approaches the age of 50.
References:
Köhler, Jörn, Matt Gage, Henry Janssen, Anna Rauhaus and Thomas Ziegler
2023 Longevity in salamandrid newts – a rule, not an exception? Verified cases of Japanese Fire-bellied Newts (Cynops pyrrhogaster) reaching a lifespan of more than 40 years, Swiss Journal of Zoology, 130 (1), 121-124.