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What is this?

Photographed near Turku in Southwestern Finland, at a site where only Lissotriton vulgaris is known.
T. cristatus does occur in Finland, but has only been found in the Åland islands and in the eastern parts of the country.
I. alpestris (introduced, of course) has been found in one pond, about 10 km away from this location.
The photographer identified this newt as T. cristatus, but wants confirmation. He says it was "at least 12 cm" long.
Which species is this?

Triturus cristatus female
fine white spots on the flanks, orange median line

Yes, cristatus for sure.

I agree, but careful with those white dots, because this is alpestris =>

Thank you guys. Cristatus is what I would have said too, I just wasn't 100% sure from those pics.

Guess what?
Today a male Ichthyosaura alpestris was seen, and photographed, in the same pond.
Is this female still 100% certainly cristatus?

I'd stick with cristatus although it wouldn't take too much to convince me otherwise if anybody comes up with solid proof. The rough estimate of size (12cm), the white spots, and the dorsal line could be present in both species, so I'm basing my opinion on the lack of the marbled pattern on the back usually present in alpestris females, the overall proportions, and my experience with seeing many Triturus (mostly cristatus). However my experience with Ictyosaura is limited so I'll be interested in what others have to say.

Hi Tom
It looks definitly typical for T.cristatus. Don't let you mislead by finding some other newts. As I'm coworking for different monitoring projects I got the possibility to search for newts with traps in certain ponds in my area. There are several ponds in which T.cristatus, I.alpestris, L.helveticus and L.vulgaris live together.

But Finnish alpestris females do look like this. No marbled dorsal pattern, white dots on flanks. This is an alpestris female from a known Finnish population:

Tom Hoogesteger wrote:But Finnish alpestris females do look like this. No marbled dorsal pattern, white dots on flanks. This is an alpestris female from a known Finnish population:

do you base this generalization on only one specimen?