adorablotl

[jinian]

Axolotl Hex is now in an axolotl aquarium rather than the large bowl that he hung out in for the first few days. I got his tank, lid, light, sand, and plant from King's Discus in the International District, which is absolutely the best pet store I've ever been to. It was so good that I made a Yelp account so I could say how good it was. The guy there was very knowledgeable and also quite interested in the fact that I knew a guy with a breeding pair of axolotls... The store has several, one white and a couple dark gray, but Hexy is wild-type mottled and thus extra intriguing as stock.



Hex is short for Hexapod. You can see in this photo that the digits are missing from some legs. From what others have said, including caudata.org, it's very common for young axolotls to bite each other's body parts off. They are known for regeneration, which is why there were five posters on them vs. my one plant poster at the conference I went to in July, and so far Hex has gone from having knobs for feet to having little elf-boot upturned tips on the knobs -- pretty impressive. Anyway, the guy who got the sibling posted to the department mailing list about how his had eaten the arms off mine and if you wanted to see a badass axolotl come by his lab. So of course I immediately started thinking of providing mine with prosthetic limbs for prompt revenge, and then he would have extras when his own grew back. Hexapodia: what could go wrong?



You can see the big feathery gills better in this photo, though it's pretty blurry. Unlike most amphibians, axolotls keep their gills and finny tail for their whole lives. (It's hard to sex them, though there are semi-reliable ways once they reach sexual maturity. Hex is a he at the moment, just for convenience.)

Currently I am feeding him shreds of salmon because we had a stray small piece. He and I are working on exploiting his feeding reflex properly; they will float at the water's surface and bite anything that falls within a certain range, but they don't pursue food so well. Possibly he is figuring out how to pick up the pieces from the sand later, but he just spat one out again, so we'll see. I might have to retrieve and re-lob them.

So far very entertaining! I was telling Wim, I think we officially have Unusual Pets now, between Hex and the Arthropod Pet. (Three cats are a little excessive but not unusual in kind.)

Comments

[dancingsinging]

OMG, he is adorable. I didn't think I was so into fish as pets, but those pics are cute. Maybe you could start making lolfish?

And I love the prosthetic limb idea!

[jinian]

Maybe you like feet? :) He's an amphibian, not a fish, which makes a big difference to the cute factor. Some people on Caudata do make LOLotls; I think I have to work on my water photography skills first!