Feathery gills! Adorable smiles! Cultural icons! Habitat ecology! And superhuman limb regeneration? It’s an entire episode on axolotls. You either love these aquatic salamanders, or you’ve never heard of them. Clap your tiny slimy hands for Ambystomologist Dr. Jessica Whited of Harvard Medical School’s Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology who raises and studies these beautiful creatures — including the biomedical marvels being discovered. Also discussed: their narrow niche, the ecology movement to save them from wild endangerment, pet care ethics, color morphs, green glowing genetically modified ones and so much more. And of course: Minecraft.

Listen via Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Podbay, Podcast Addict, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Follow Jessica on Instagram

Visit the Whited Whited L ab and browse Dr. Whited’s papers on ResearchGate

Pre-order her children’s book: Axolotl (Young Zoologist): A First Field Guide to the Amphibian That Never Grows Up (October 1, 2024)

A donation went to ADOPTAXOLTL via Instituto de Biologia de la UNAM

Links to things we discussed:

Tail regeneration at different ontogenetic stages of the tiger salamander Ambystoma tigrinum suggests possible changes in regeneration between larval and metamorphic individuals

Establishment of a Practical Sperm Cryopreservation Pathway for the Axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum): A Community-Level Approach to Germplasm Repository Development

Detailed morphological analysis of axolotl sperm

Axolotls and the French Intervention

What are GFP Axolotls?

A germline GFP transgenic axolotl and its use to track cell fate: Dual origin of the fin mesenchyme during development and the fate of blood cells during regeneration