DEVELOPMENT OF NOTOPHTHALMUS-VIRIDESCENS EMBRYOS

Although the North American, adult, red-spotted newt has been an excel lent model in the study of appendage regeneration at the tissue and ce ll levels, experiments involving embryonic forms have been essentially impossible to perform at the molecular level due to the great difficu lty in breeding newts in the laboratory. Recently, we reported our met hods to successfully spawn many thousands of embryos of Notophthalmus viridescens for developmental studies on a year round basis. As no det ailed examination of embryogenesis of this amphibian exists, we provid e a scanning electron microscopic overview of N. viridescens developme nt. Furthermore, we chronicle the life cycle of the newt, when produce d under laboratory conditions, which also undergoes two metamorphoses as newts in the wild.