 Ken P. Aplin and Steve C. Donnellan called the name a "nomen nudum" as neither Wells and Wellington's nor Storr's notes distinguished the new taxon from the northern death adder.Simon Maddock and colleagues analysed the Kimberley death adder genetically and found that it was a distinct lineage, more closely related to the desert death adder ("A. pyrrhus"), and named it "Acanthophis cryptamydros" in 2015, as they proposed that "A. lancasteri" was a nomen nudum.Wellington countered that their 1985 name was in fact valid.