The newly published
Guide to the Amphibians and Reptiles of Japan by Richard Goris and Norio Maeda (ISBN 1-57524-085-8) has adopted the name "
Japanese Warty Newt" for
andersoni, saying:
"The common name '
crocodile newt' is often used in the pet trade, and the name '
alligator newt' has also been used in print; but '
warty newt' seems more appropriate, since it is closer to the Japanese vernacular."
Indeed, "ibo" is the Japanese word for "wart" and "imori" is the word for newt. But "ibo imori" is also applied to newts of the genus Tylototriton, such as "minami-ibo-imori" (literally "southern warty newt") for
T.shanjing or "akamimi-ibo-imori" (literally "red-eared warty newt") for
T.taliangensis.
This guide does not have a problem with that as it calls the species in question
Tylototriton andersoni instead of
Echinotriton andersoni, explaining as follows:
"The genus
Echinotriton was erected for this taxon (Nussbaum & Brodie,
Herpetelogica, 38(2), 1982), but Japanese specialists argue that there is not enough genetic differentiation from
Tylototriton to justify this."
It seems a bit confusing though to call
andersoni "warty newt", because aren't the
Paramesotriton species referred to as "warty newts"? The Japanese language gets around this by calling
Paramesotriton species "kobu-imori" or "lumpy newts"
Incidently, does anybody have a copy of the above-mentioned Herpetelogica article that they could share with me? A scanned copy would do nicely!
(Message edited by TJ on September 14, 2004)