A 24-million-year-old fossil belonging to Triturus, perhaps a marbled newt, shows that the genus already existed at that time[REF] and contradicts the earlier estimate of 8.3 million years ago (mya) for the split between the crested and marbled newts and their sister genus, the European brook newts (Calotriton) [REF].
At the onset of the Quaternary glacial cycles, around 2.6 mya, the extant Triturus species had already emerged [REF].