Description

Shrouded in mystery, and defying typical biological laws like metamorphosis, the axolotl (pronounced AX-oh-lot-ul), a type of salamander, keeps its webbed feet firmly placed in infancy throughout its life.

Unlike other salamanders, axolotls are neotenic, meaning they keep juvenile characteristics into adulthood. The axolotl remains aquatic (like larvae) their entire life. Though it develops functional lungs, it uses its fancy, feathery gills to breathe underwater. Like youngsters, they retain external gills, a tail, and a body fin, and lack moveable eyelids.

Naturally occurring in Lake Xochimilco and Lake Chalco in the southern Mexico City neighborhood of Xochimilco, these fascinating creatures are rarely seen in person.

Descended from the tiger salamander, the axolotl is “young", having inhabited central Mexico for only about the last 10,000 years, according to some experts. Indigenous to these two spring-fed lakes along the southern edge of the Basin of Mexico, much of its suitable habitat has been drained. The Xochimilco-Chalco basin, once about 77 square miles (200 square kilometers) of marshes, swamps, and lagoons, was significantly reduced 85 years ago when drainage projects were completed.

The axolotl is charismatic and steeped in Mexican history, culture, and identity.