Wang Yuan from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences first described the species in 2000.

[1] In 2005, he presented a full description in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology along with C. S. Rose from James Madison University, United States.

[2] The genus name "Jehol-" refers to Jehol Biota, which flourished during the Early Cretaceous in northeastern China.

The original naming paper (Wang, 2000) regarded the salamander a member of the biota, but recent studies reveals this fossil-bearing Daohugou Beds is lower, Middle/Late Jurassic in age.

Evans in 2006 found that Jeholotriton is a possible sister taxon to Pangerpeton, a short-bodied salamander from an adjacent locality in Lingyuan, Liaoning, strata comparable to the Daohugou Beds.