According to ancient fossil evidence, the red-crowned crane originated from mainland China and was found under the man cave in Shandong Cave, Beijing. This specimen is now preserved at the National Institute of Paleontology
In 1776, a German published An article about naming various birds, in which the red-crowned crane was named "Japanese Crane". Because the Qing government was closed to the outside world at that time, the German did not know that the red-crowned crane originated in China, and he was unable to obtain a specimen of the red-crowned crane. At that time, a Japanese provided a specimen of the red-crowned crane from his own country. In this way, according to Linnaeus' rules of biological classification, the physical object Naming can be based on a person's name or a place name. Because the specimen was brought from Japan, it was named 'Japanese Crane', and the English and Latin names are also called 'Japanese Crane'. It has been used internationally ever since. Even the Japanese themselves don't call it "Japanese Crane", but "tancho".
In 1980, an International Crane Research Conference was held in Hokkaido, Japan, at which this issue was discussed. At that time, Professor Zheng Zuoxin, an ornithologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, suggested that the "Japanese Crane" is essentially the "Red-Crowned Crane" and should be changed. Later, the English name was changed to "Red-Crowned Crane". Since then, it has been used in international academic conferences and published literature, but the Latin text has not changed.