A newt of rice fields and ponds on Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, with a dark back and a red belly patterned in black.
Its back is dark brown, its belly is red with black markings, and its tail is flattened from side to side.
It feeds on small animals such as earthworms, insects and frog larvae.
Females attach eggs individually to aquatic plants and other supports. The larvae grow in water.
After metamorphosis, juveniles live on land; mature animals spend much of their time back in water.
A 2008 study of wet rice fields and adjacent earthen ditches in Takashima, Shiga recorded 52 larval captures: 51 in the ditches and one in a rice field.
In four of five rice-field and ditch pairs studied in the same area in 2009, adult catches peaked in ditches in May–June and in rice fields in July–August.
Breeding males develop a pale bluish colour, including on the tail.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
Japan’s fifth Red List places it in Near Threatened. Drying rice fields and ditches, loss of terrestrial grassland and woodland, and collection for captivity threaten its populations.