A Great Crested Newt was found badly injured on a country path in a rural village in Leicestershire on Thursday (October 7).
The species is the least common newt native to the UK and is highly protected.
Two days before (Tuesday October 5), an even more unusual amphibian was found on a path outside an old people’s home in Nottingham. It took consultation with national wildlife experts to identify it as a Pleurodeles Waltl, or sharp-ribbed newt, so-called because it can poke its ribs through its own skin and spike predators with poison.
The species is normally found on the Iberian Peninsula or Morocco and it is thought this animal must be an escaped or abandoned pet.
The Great Crested Newt, otherwise known as the warty newt, was found by a passer-by in Appleby Magna, near Ashby de-la Zouch with an injured tail and possible spine problems. The species is protected by both the Habitat and Species Regulations 2010 and the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.
RSPCA officer Neil Astle was called to collect the adult female and take it to Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre, near Nantwich in Cheshire, where she is now being cared for. It is hoped she will eventually be released back into the wild. He said: “This was a very rare find. “It is the first Great Crested I have come across in the 22 years I have been doing this job.
“Who knows how she came to be where she was. Considering the injuries it could have been dropped there by some kind of predator or perhaps even come from a nearby dried-up well.”
The sharp-ribbed newt is not native to the UK it cannot be released into the wild and has been re-homed with an exotics specialist.
RSPCA inspector Teresa Potter said: “It is very unusual to find this animal in this country even as a pet. I have never come across anyone who’s kept one of these before and we had to ask a lot of people before we could identify it. “It is a lovely little thing and obviously a tough cookie – it must have been through quite a lot to turn up where it did but was in pretty good shape.”