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From WinkyPedia, the free encyclopedia that tells you what you already knew
The axolotl is a salamander from the lakes and canals around Mexico City. Unlike most salamanders it never grows up: it keeps its feathery external gills and stays in the water its whole life, while still becoming an adult that can breed.[1] It is the only animal to have reached maturity without ever leaving its childhood bedroom, and it seems very happy about it.
Axolotls also appear to be smiling at all times. Biologists say this is just the shape of the mouth, and that the axolotl has no special reason to look pleased, which has not stopped it.
An axolotl can regrow a lost leg, complete with bones, muscles and nerves, and can repair parts of its spinal cord, its heart and even its brain. It does this without leaving a scar.[2] Scientists have studied it for well over a century in the hope of learning how. The axolotl has been very cooperative, and has not told them.
An axolotl that loses a leg simply grows a new one. An axolotl that loses an argument is not known to have one.
Although axolotls are kept in laboratories and homes all over the world, they are critically endangered in the wild, where they now live only in a small area of canals in Xochimilco, in Mexico City. Conservation work there is ongoing.
Wild axolotls are usually dark. The pale pink ones are mostly found in tanks.