Triturus
Northern Crested Newt (Triturus cristatus ), male in the transition from water to land costume
- T. carnifex - Alpine newt
- T. cristatus - Northern Crested Newt
- T. dobrogicus - Danube crested newt
- T. ivanbureschi - Bureschs crested newt
- T. karelinii - Asian crested newt
- T. macedonicus - Macedonian Crested Newt
- T. marmoratus - marbled newt
- T. pygmaeus - Dwarf marbled newt
Triturus is a genus of salamanders of the family of Real salamanders and newts ( Salamandridae ). Until very recently, this, up to 16 taxa were counted, including all native to Central Europe newts. As a result of new molecular genetic and morphological studies, it has now become widely accepted, however, to leave only the newt group and the two types of marble salamanders in the genus Triturus and assign three separate genera of the remaining species.
Etymology
The word " Triturus " was formed from two Greek words:
- Triton: Son of Poseidon - Upper Body in humans, lower body in fish shape.
- Ura: tail
" Triturus " therefore means as much as water tailed God.
Characteristics, mating behavior
The representatives of the genus Triturus spend part of the year on land, but at least looking at the reproductive bodies of water. The males develop a species-specific water costume, which is usually dominated by luminous body colors and / or a flexible skin crest on back and tail. Newts show a characteristic courtship behavior in which the male is courting the largely passive females. Usually this befächelt the male with his chosen tail the female and in between gives him a whip-like beat. Finally, it puts a seed packet, called a spermatophore on the ground from about moving the female to pick them up with the cloaca (indirect internal fertilization ). It sets later, the eggs usually separately from, which are attached to aquatic plants or lying on the sea bed sheets, while " wrapped ".
System
Until recently, the following species of the genus Triturus were attributed ( this traditional scientific names are used but still often, plus newly delimited taxa ):
- Triturus alpestris ( Laurenti, 1768) - Alpine Newt
- Triturus boscai ( Lataste in Tourneville, 1879) - Spanish newt
- Triturus carnifex ( Laurenti, 1768) - Alpine newt
- Triturus cristatus ( Laurenti, 1768) - Northern Crested Newt
- Triturus dobrogicus ( Kiritzescu, 1903) - Danube crested newt
- Triturus helveticus ( Razoumovsky, 1789) - palmate newt
- Triturus italicus ( Peracca, 1898) - Italian newt
- Triturus karelinii ( Bush, 1870) - Asian crested newt
- Triturus macedonicus ( Karaman, 1922) - Macedonian Crested Newt
- Triturus marmoratus ( Latreille, 1800 ) - marbled newt
- Triturus montandoni ( Boulenger, 1880) - Carpathian newt
- Triturus pygmaeus ( Wolterstorff, 1905) - dwarf marbled newt
- Triturus vittatus ophryticus (Berthold, 1846) - Northern belt scraper
- Triturus vittatus vittatus ( Gray in Jenyns, 1835) - Southern belt scraper
- Triturus vulgaris (Linnaeus, 1758) - newt
There had been several times in the herpetological history attempts genus Triturus taxonomically further differentiate. Striking is the kinship appear near the one hand, the small species such as smooth newt, palmate newt or Italian newt, on the other hand the great crested newts and salamanders marble. So hit Bolkay before 1928, to form three subgenera named Paleotriton, Mesotriton and Neotriton within the genus Triturus.
In 2004, a Spanish team of authors postulated the removal of the small newts as a separate genus Lissotriton and also that of the Alpine newt genus as Mesotriton. They relied apparently mainly due to anatomical differences in the Internasal - fontanelles and Paraoccipitalwülste.
Another proposal was made in 2005. The Alpine Newt should also be placed in a separate genus Mesotriton as well as the great crested newt and marbled newt Triturus species will continue to be called. However, the small newts should not Lissotriton but Lophinus hot and get the belt scraper own genus Ommatotriton, the two previous sub-species also should be given species status - Ommatotriton vittatus for southern populations and Ommatotriton ophryticus for northern reserves.
Meanwhile (2009/2010) seems to have a mixture of these proposals enforced until further notice, which was again called for a correction to its monotypic genus name of Mesotriton on the older and thus priority Ichthyosaura the Alpine newt after evaluation of historical literature.
Accordingly, the previous Triturus species are taxonomically now divided as follows: