Axolotls

Last year I was fortunate to acquire two Axolotl's from a friend who bred them in 2007. I'm usually a fan of morphs in most things, but I prefer the wild type to any other colour form in these guys.

These are a permanantly aquatic salamander, quite closely related to the Tiger salamander....and hybrids between the two species have been produced in captivity. When these guys hatch out as 'tadpoles' and grow, they do not lose their gills with age and develop into a terrestrial form as most salamanders do. Instead, they retain their juvenile features (gills) into adulthood - a condition called NEOTENY


Under extreme drought conditions in the wild (and when given hormone injections in captivity) Axolotls will lose their gills, develop lungs and become terrestrial. In the wild this metamorphosis is very unusual and allows them to survive when water levels drop very low. In captivity at least, hormone-induced metamorphosis produces a terrestrial salamander that is short-lived.

The Axolotl is also one species that is much more common in captivity than in the wild. It is critically endangered and formerly existed in 2 lakes in Mexico - lakes Xochimilco and Chalco. As Mexico City has expanded Lake Xochimilco has been reduced to a series of canals, and any areas where the Axolotl may still exist here are now part of the metropolitan area of the city!

The name 'Axolotl' is the Aztec name for the animal and it translates as 'water dog'