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Axolotl
'Cute Axolotl Cartoon Character'
2025
June Yap
A very cute vector illustration of an Axolotl.
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Species: Axolotl, Ambystoma mexicanum
Location and habitat: CentralAmerica
Conservation Status: CriticallyEndangered , IUCN Red List
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Title: 'Cute Axolotl Cartoon Character'
Creator: June Yap
Date: 2025
Medium: Vector Illustration
Copyright: Via Adobe Stock
This fish-tank favourite creature, with its Instagram-able cute smile, little hands and adorable tentacle-y mane is -- perhaps surprisingly -- critically endangered, right on the brink of extinction in the wild. These strange salamanders inhabited the giant lakes that surrounded Tenochtitlan, the island capital of the Aztec Empire. After the Spanish Conquest, the city razed and occupied, and the lakes were drained, drastically reducing the habitat. Over the drained lakes grew what we now call Mexico City, a vast metropolis currently home to around 10 million people. Today, Axolotls inhabit Lake Xochimilco is about about twenty kilometers south of the city's centre, and encircled by urban sprawl. Once a large lake upon which pre-Columbian farmers grew flowers, fruit and vegetables on floating gardens, today, Lake Xochimilco is a series of channels and a small wetland area flanked by a 2km rectangle of water that functions as a rowing club and many small agricultural plots. These days, the body of water is filled with plastic, agro-chemical run off, introduced fish -- especially the African tilapia and Asian carp, which eat young Axolotls and compete for food. To cap it off, the narrow waterway is rammed full of colourful flat-bottomed boats, powered by punt poles, and packed with mariachi bands and too many tourists.
Named after the Aztec god of fire and lightning, Axolotl's pseudo-anthorpomorphc cuteness belies a creature very far removed from a human. These strange amphibians remain in their larval form throughout their lives -- like a perpetual tadpole -- keeping their external gills and aquatic habitat. Today, Axolotls are considered a 'model species' and thus of much interest to bio-tech industry, who perform all manner of studies on their embryo's developing nervous systems, as well as their phenomenal regenerative abilities, with them even being able to regrow lost limbs. It is a contradiction worth pondering that I buy an Axolotl online for just AU$29.99 -- which includes the delivery fee to have it couriered to me in less than 24 hours -- yet the creature is critically engaged in the wild. The hyper powerful commodity market that allows for the delivery of live Axolotls is in many ways the same force that has driven these curious creatures to all but extinction.
