National Geographic gets it wrong

Jennewt · Sep 7, 2008

The National Geographic website contains profiles of some amphibian species. But they have described crested newts and misnamed them "warty newts":
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/amphibians/warty-newt.html

I really have to wonder how they could have gotten this so wrong. I wrote to their News Desk and Webmaster and asked them to correct the error.

Jennewt · Sep 7, 2008

They also have an entry for the axolotl
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/amphibians/axolotl.html
I'm a bit disappointed that, although the article is about WILD axolotls, the photo depicts a leucistic.

Blackhawk IV · Sep 7, 2008

I agree, it does seem pretty strange that a world-wide acclaimed magazine could get things like that wrong. Although it must be said that especially here in Europe (I don't know about the US) the GCNs are often called Warty newts despite the fact that the Paramesotriton species are also described as warty newts.

Blackhawk

Nathan050793 · Sep 7, 2008

Blackhawk IV said:
Although it must be said that especially here in Europe (I don't know about the US) the GCNs are often called Warty newts despite the fact that the Paramesotriton species are also described as warty newts.

That probably explains it, as in the article they are describing Triturus cristatus. It is still incredible to me that they show a leucistic axolotl on a page describing wild axolotls XD.

Kaysie · Sep 7, 2008

The joys of common names...

As for the axolotl, the leucistic axie just looks cooler, despite not precisely describing wild populations.

Jennewt · Sep 7, 2008

Blackhawk IV said:
Although it must be said that especially here in Europe (I don't know about the US) the GCNs are often called Warty newts despite the fact that the Paramesotriton species are also described as warty newts.

Oh, I had never heard that. I guess that explains where they got it.

fishkeeper · Sep 9, 2008

agreed every axolotl photo is usually a head on shot of a leucistic specimen. Sure made me scratch my head when it was in a story about odd animals in Ranger Rick that I saw when I was little. And definetly got my interest.

caleb · Sep 9, 2008

As I remember, Malcolm Smith's "The British Amphibians and Reptiles" (1951) favoured "Warty Newt" for T. cristatus- this was the standard text on the UK species until Frazer's book in 1983.

I think Smith prefered this name as it better distinguished T. cristatus from T. (=L.) vulgaris- male smooth newts have crests, and could be described as 'crested'; in no way could they be described as 'warty'.

aramcheck · Sep 9, 2008

Kaysie said:
The joys of common names...

As for the axolotl, the leucistic axie just looks cooler, despite not precisely describing wild populations.

Although the National Geographic is a large reputable publication, this is in no way a guard against picture editor comiting this kind of mistake (I suspect the reason indeed is that the leucistic axie is deemed more visualy striking than a wild type specimen - although I disagree). A similar mistake was the BBC Wildlife magazine a couple of issues ago publishing a 'how to distinguish the Common Frog from the Common Toad, illustrating the toad page with a gorgeous picture of... Bufo viridis
obviously some picture editor found a 'better picture'

than the one originally provided, or something of that sort...

Kaysie · Sep 9, 2008

Oh I'm sure! Without the aesthetic appeal, most people wouldn't tune in. It's the same with ball pythons. The 'cool' ones (albino, lavender, whatever) are always what people see on TV. It's never the normal, plain-jain brown ones.

While we see the wildtype specimens for their true beauty, others see them as 'brown'.

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