Mesotriton alpestris renamed.

[Mark]

That's a really interesting article. Thanks for translating it Ralph and Jen (and of course Guenter for writing it!)

 

[Azhael]

It´s indeed confusing.....and annoying, but i´d rather have this problems than going back to the old Triturus....please anything but that....
I myself am rather comfortable with Triturus, Lissotriton, Ichthyosaura and Ommatotriton right now....makes sense, and it´s just about getting used to the names. Wether the names are correct or not at least the division of the species sounds logic to me....i guess we´ll have to wait for the next genetic study and subsequent war of the names....¬¬

 

[John]

How on earth could anyone be comfortable with calling a genus of newt "Fish-lizard" ???!?!???? I'm totally dumbfounded as to why a scientist would put "lizard" in an official scientific name for an amphibian. It's idiocy. I'll quite happily flame the scientists who came up with that one.

 

[coendeurloo]

It's ridiculous, but it's the 'honour' of the scientist that named it this way first.

 

[caleb]

It's interesting to see this found in the older literature, but I was under the impression that an older name may not necessarily take precedence if it's been out of use for a long time (nomen oblitum?), and if the newer name is more familiar- does anyone here know more about this?

This would seem to be the case with Ichthyosaura, as it pretty much disappeared without trace...

In any case, one publication mentioning the name (did Schmidtler even suggest that it should be used now, or just mention it as a curiosity?) hardly constitutes good reason for people to start panicking that their websites are out of date- there are plenty of scientific publications still using Triturus for the non-warty species- just trying searching Herpetological Contents ( http://www.herplit.com/contents/index.html ).

 

[grunsven]

As the name was given in 1768 chances are the scientist who named this species has since died.

It is true that exceptions to the rules are possible in these cases. But that's up to the committee.

 

[caudatious]

The caudacity of some people!

 

[Yahilles]

"How on earth could anyone be comfortable with calling a genus of newt "Fish-lizard" ???!?!???? I'm totally dumbfounded as to why a scientist would put "lizard" in an official scientific name for an amphibian."
Yeah, it makes no sense for me too, as scientific name of water mammal - Basilosaurus.
Breaking Triturus into number of genera was good idea - i always thought why sometimes completely different newts were in that same genus. Now is good - Triturus, Lissotriton, Ommatotriton, Mesotriton. But why to change only genus name, when it changes nothing? Only word, nothing more.
But i also like word Ichtyosaura, sounds good, but not for a newt :wink:

 

[Jennewt]

Applying math (vaguely) to taxonomy... if you average a fish and a lizard, you get... a newt! Ichthyosaura. Makes perfectly absurd sense to my addled brain:rofl: (I certainly understand the complaints, it's a strange name!)

 

[grunsven]

Well it was 18th century people didn't have a clue about taxonomy and it was a description of a larvae. Which is shaped as a lizard but lives in the water and has gills, makes sense to me too when seen in context that is.

 

[John]

Well it seems the great and powerful Amphibiaweb hasn't changed to the silly name: http://amphibiaweb.org/cgi-bin/amph...here-genus=Mesotriton&where-species=alpestris