Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
9
One and the Same: The Newt and the Red Eft
MYTHS
The newt and the red eft are two different species.
PEER INTO PONDS, POOLS, AND QUIET STREAMS IN THE EASTERN UNITED STATES AND
CANADA, AND YOU MAY SEE SMALL, BROWNISH, RED-SPOTTED CREATURES THAT
BEAR A PASSING RESEMBLANCE TO MINUSCULE ALLIGATORS. They bear no relationship to
alligators and other reptiles, however; instead, they're a type of salamander known as the newt—in this
case, the Eastern or red-spotted newt
(Notophthalmus viridescens).
Like frogs and toads, salamanders are amphibians, meaning that they can lead a double life, one
stage aquatic and the other terrestrial. The newts, however, have added a unique extra complexity in
that they have not two but
three
distinct life stages, two of them aquatic and one terrestrial. Further, in a
rather mystifying anomaly, some red-spotted newts skip the second, intermediate stage and spend both
life stages in the water!
When is a newt not a newt? The answer to this riddle is linguistic rather than biological, and lies
far in the past. In Old English (also termed Anglo-Saxon), spoken in England from about A.D. 450 to
A.D. 1050, this type of salamander was originally known as an
efete.
This soon became
evet
and, in an
unusual shift from
v
to
w
a little later still,
ewt.
This brings us into Middle English, which reigned from
just before the Norman Conquest until about 1475.
But a funny thing happened to the ewt on the road from Middle English to Modern English. The
articles
a
and
an
had sometimes been combined with the words which followed them. Then, late in the
Middle English period, they began to be separated again, and considerable confusion was the result.
In this process,
an ewt
(or
anewt
) became
a newt.
This uncertainty and subsequent incorrect separa-
tion worked both ways. Old English
naedre,
for example, gave way to Middle English
nadder,
which
was finally transformed from
a nadder
(or
anadder
) to
an adder.
In similar fashion,
a napron
became
an apron.
Of such vagaries are names sometimes fashioned! This shift had clearly taken place be-
fore Shakespeare's time, for “eye of newt” is one of the ingredients in the infamous witches' brew in
Macbeth.
Newts are common and widely distributed from the Canadian Maritimes to southern Ontario and
south to eastern Texas. The adult newt is not very large—three and a half to almost four inches long.
Its color varies somewhat from yellowish to greenish brown on the upper side, with scattered black
