Axolotl Quotes

“There was a time when I thought a great deal about the axolotls. I went to see them in the aquarium at the Jardin des Plantes and stayed for hours watching them, observing their immobility, their faint movements. Now I am an axolotl.”
― Julio Cortázar, Blow-Up and Other Stories

“How is regeneration of the spinal cord in the salamander related to its initial development ? There is now evidence that in the salamander, the steps of progenitor cell-patterning and controlled neurogenesis that naturally regenerate a severed tail largely recapitulate the steps followed during early embryonic development to initially build the central nervous system. For example, ependymal cells are descendants of radial glial cells retained from the earliest developmental stages in regenerating vertebrates. The ependymal tube that gives rise to regenerated spinal cord following salamander tail amputation is very similar in appearance to the early structure of the neural tube of developing amniotes. But how does that recapitulation occur ? By using a transgenic axolotl that expresses green fluorescent proteins (GFPs), they further examined the regenerated spinal cord by replacing a segment of the spinal cord from a typical animal with a piece of the spinal cord from a GFP-expressing animal - that is, one with green fluorescent cells. They found that the implanted cells in the experimental animals regenerated a green spinal cord ! Thus, regeneration may be a more neural stem-cell like, or pluripotent, state as a response to injury.”
― Eugene C. Goldfield, Bioinspired Devices: Emulating Nature’s Assembly and Repair Process

“Truly obscure animals, like the axolotl (a type of salamander) or the Wunderpus photogenicus (a type of octopus which, true to its name, is very photogenic), don't have nicknames in common use, although I expect to hear from the Association for Researchers of the Axolotl and the Wunderpus Photogenicus (ARAWP?) any day now informing me that they say them often enough that they've devised more efficient names for them.”
― Gretchen McCulloch, Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language

“The axolotl is remarkable because it becomes sexually mature while still retaining the external gills of its larval form. It seems, however, that this is due to nutritional problems. The change from larva to adult is triggered by hormones, including thyroxine produced by the thyroid gland. Conditions in this one lake, both chemical and physical, are such that this gland does not develop properly. But that can be corrected. If an axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) is kept in a tank and a little thyroxine added to its water, the animal loses its external gills, climbs out of water and assumes a terrestrial life.”
― David Attenborough, Life in Cold Blood