the.com/axolotl
a salamander that refused to grow up and accidentally became immortal-ish doing it
means A neotenic Mexican salamander that keeps its juvenile, gilled aquatic form for life and can regrow lost limbs, organs, and even parts of its brain.
from Straight from Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs: 'axolotl' joins 'atl' (water) with 'xolotl' — which can mean servant, slave, or monster, and is also the name of Xolotl, the dog-headed god of lightning, death, and twins. The popular gloss is 'water-dog' or 'water-monster,' and one telling has Xolotl himself fleeing sacrifice by diving into the water and turning into the creature. The Spanish carried the word into Europe largely intact, which is why a tongue-twisting Aztec name still labels a pet-shop animal today.
- regrows everything
- limbs, spine, heart, even parts of its brain
- forever baby
- keeps larval gills its entire adult life
- nearly extinct
- barely survives in one Mexico City lake system
- cancer resistant
- develops tumors roughly a thousand times less than mammals
- aztec god
- named for Xolotl, deity of fire and lightning
mexican axolotl — ambystoma mexicanum, native only to lakes near mexico city, critically endangered in wild since 1998
lake xochimilco population — last wild axolotl colony in mexico city's xochimilco wetlands, fewer than 1,200 individuals estimated in 2018