Word: triturus
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Triturus viridescens is a U. S. newt which spends the first three to six months of its life as a water larva, then-in some parts of the country at least-comes out to take up residence on land. On land the newts are bright red in color, are known as "red efts." During this phase they are immature and cannot reproduce. After three or four years, they go back to the water, slough off the red skin of adolescence, assume the olive-green garb of adults, acquire the keeled tail of an aquatic animal, and tackle the business...
Last year, at the height of the craze which led college students to swallow goldfish, mice, worms and other spectacular inedibles, a Stanford student swallowed a specimen Triturus. Until last week the young man did not realize how lucky he had been. Since he did not even get sick after his feat, the downed Triturus must have been a male or an eggless female...
Last week a group of Stanford University scientists announced that they had found a far more virulent poison in a species of salamander, Triturus torosus, which is abundant in California. The venom occurs in the egg yolk, in embryos which have not finished eating the yolk, and in egg-carrying adult females. When some of this poison was injected into a cat, the cat lost muscular coordination, collapsed, went into convulsions, suffered respiratory paralysis, died in 20 minutes. Quantitative tests showed that one gram (1/28 oz.) of Triturus poison is enough to kill 75,000 mice or 600 monkeys...
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