Zoology Jottings: John Anderson’s Newt on the Road from Mandalay

The first of what are now known as crocodile newts to be described in the scientific literature was Tylotriton verrucosus from Yunnan Province in China. A welter of new species of Tylotriton has been described in the past few decades—38 at the latest count—but how many would pass as proper ‘biological species’ is open to question. Newts from south-western China have been studied because tectonic shifts during the Pleistocene have resulted in mountain ranges and deep river gorges within a relatively small area, leaving plenty of opportunities for the isolation or partial isolation of breeding populations and the emergence of new geographical variants and new species.

A considerable amount of knowledge has accumulated on the natural history of T. verrucosus which at present goes under the common names in English of Western Himalayan Crocodile Newt or Longchuan Crocodile Newt. Indeed some studies have been made at or near the sites of its discovery. However, little attention has been paid to the circumstances under which John Anderson saw, collected, described and named the species. Anderson found the newt while medical officer and naturalist to the British mission into Yunnan from Burma in 1868. The party led by Captain Sladen travelled by steamboat from Mandalay to Bhamo and then by land. Anderson published his account of the new species in Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London in 1871. The bland description by Anderson does not cover the tribulations of the mission which have been described recently by David Leffman in his book A Murder in Yunnan and in the account by Anderson himself in 1876.

from Anderson 1871

Particularly noticeable in these newts are the large skin tubercles which form a line each side of the body. Underlying each glandular tubercle is a blunt rib and it is presumed that the ribs help press toxic secretion from the glands if the newt is compressed by the grasp or bite of a predator

Anderson wrote of his newt:

Hab[itiat]. Nantin, Momien, and Hotha valleys, Western Yunan, China.

I first met with this remarkable Newt in the flooded rice-fields about the little Chinese town of Nantin, where, however, it was not very common. In the more elevated and subtemperate valley of Momien, at about a height of nearly 5000 feet above the sea, and in the high sequestered valley of Hotha (5000 feet) it was far from uncommon.

I have marked these places on a map from Anderson’s book. They are all along the Taping or Daying River or one of its tributaries. The Taping flows from the east to join the Irrawaddy near Bhamo in Burma (Myanmar). Later reports also show T. verrucosus occurs in that part of northern Burma.

A map from Anderson's 1876 account of the two missions to Yunnan
Th red dots show the sites Tylotriton verrucosus was seen
Yunnan-Fu is now Kunming. Momien is Tengchong.

The 1868 Mission was fraught with uncertainty and danger. Anderson described the following incident in one of the areas the newt was found. The background to this particular episode is that a Muslim Revolt was in full swing in Yunnan against the Qing Dynasty and the Panthay rebels held towns and villages along the route the mission was taking. Near one of the places the newt was found the party rested a for a while at hot springs:

After enjoying our halt, which had been made with the full approval of the Panthay officers and the Hotha chief, we started to overtake the cavalcade, which had marched forward. Just as we rejoined the rear-guard, four shots were fired in front, but as the road only admitted of single file, and lay along a thickly wooded hillside, marked by the ruins of many villages, no one could advance to reconnoitre. Word was presently passed down that the mules had been attacked and two Panthay officers wounded but on proceeding onwards, we discovered that the affair was more serious, and that the two officers and another man had been killed. We soon came up to the bodies of the officers wrapped in their large turbans and tied to bamboos, ready to be carried back to Nantin. The poor fellows bad both been great favourites with their comrades and the governor of Momien; and a sad group surrounded the bodies, including their female relatives, who had ridden out from Nantin only to lament their murder, for so it was. As they were riding at the head of the mules, at a corner in the narrow path, a lurking body of Chinese rushed out from the trees, shot down the first, and the second, hurrying to the rescue, was shot through the leg and cut down with a dah. Eight mules had their loads thrown off and looted, and were then driven up the hills. A little further on, the scene of the disaster was marked by the ransacked packages lying on the roadside, and among them two boxes containing my clothes and note-books. One of these had escaped unopened, and was left in charge of a Panthay officer who promised to see it brought on. At the head of the valley a halt was called, to enable all the Panthays to come up, as a second ambuscade was suspected in a thickly wooded hollow in the steep hillside above.

Newts and other specimens of the local fauna were not the only things Anderson brought back from Yunnan. The British Museum has a Shan dao, a knife made of metal, wood and string, from Hotha presented by Anderson. It is I think of the same type used in the above account to kill the Panthay officer.