Dogs are a man’s best friend, but as a boy, Scott McLennan’s bestie was a mythic amphibious beast.
Slippery little suckers.” It’s 1990. Julia Roberts has just become Hollywood’s biggest star after muttering this memorable line in Pretty Woman. Half a world away in Australia, I’m a kid dealing with my very own slippery little sucker: for my birthday, I’ve been gifted a Mexican walking fish.
Looking like an HR Giger collaboration with Hello Kitty, my axolotl was never going to win any beauty contests. In fact, we weren’t even sure if my amphibious friend in the fish tank was a male or female. Despite the name, Mexican walking fish are a difficult pet to put on a leash and take down to the park. It didn’t matter: for me, it was love at first sight.
I’d been excited about the possibility of a pet since learning about this fascinating species six months before my birthday. Mexican walking fish are neotenic amphibians, meaning they have the ability to complete their entire life cycle in the larval stage. I liked to imagine an ill-tempered primordial axolotl simply put its foot down, defying its parents by refusing to metamorphose into a salamander like a petulant teenager refusing to clean their room: “I told you I didn’t want to go wandering around your stinking primordial land mass! I’m just going to stay here underwater.”
People talk about how pet owners grow to resemble their animals. With our pale skin, a dusting of freckles and faces permanently fixed in inscrutable goofy grins, I admit there were indeed similarities between us. For the sake of my ongoing acceptance in general society, thankfully only one of us sported three sets of red external gills like a theatrical, feathery boa.
Library books provided a suitable name for my aquatic beastie. Since the species originated in a scattering of lakes in Mexico, I took a name from Aztec culture: Quetzalcoatl. Known as the feathered serpent god, various ancient carvings of Quetzalcoatl looked remarkably similar to an axolotl. Since ancient Aztec rites included priests routinely sacrificing the human hearts of their people, the name seemed perfect: my axolotl’s favourite meal was a nightly slice of lamb heart.
Even for a peculiar 12-year-old with a freakish interest in ancient civilisations, Quetzalcoatl was an unwieldy name. In typical Australian fashion, it was slimmed to “Quetza”. Quetza quickly usurped my worn-out VHS recording of the time I won a competition on Cartoon Connection as the most exciting thing to show off to any visiting pals.
Axolotl feeding time regularly saw intrigued visitors congregating around the fish tank. Silent and still, Quetza would bask just below the water level like a miniature white crocodile. With a sliver of heart carefully dangling from a pair of plastic tweezers, I’d tentatively draw closer. To build suspense, sometimes the nonchalant amphibian would remain motionless until my fingers were almost cramping from the tension. Like a seasoned circus pro, he’d know when to finally unleash. Chomp! With a flick of his tail and a snap of his jaws, Quetza would propel himself out of the water and snatch the morsel of flesh and suck it into his gullet before shocked witnesses even had time to take in the scene. Quetza’s mealtime frenzy made my dad particularly antsy. Despite his regular run-ins with redback spiders, tiger snakes and agitated one-tonne bulls around our farm, it seemed he met his match with Quetza. He’d leap backwards every time the hungry carnivore charged at his meal.
On the day we picked up Quetza from the pet shop, the cheery man behind the counter had suggested axolotls live for around seven years. The cheery man behind the counter was wrong. Quetza spent 21 years living in my parents’ bathroom. I’d moved interstate many years earlier, so my mum became Quetza’s doting guardian (my dad assisted by feeding him only when necessary).
In 2020, I finally explored the lands of Quetza’s forebears. While some wild axolotls still live in lakes on the outskirts of Mexico City, populations have dropped dramatically in the years since I first took delivery of my aquatic amigo. Urbanisation, feral species and pollution have all taken a toll. Conservation efforts are now focused on maintaining the critically endangered species’ genetic stock and reintroducing axolotls to safe and hospitable alternate waterways.
On my final day in Mexico, I visited Museo Nacional de Antropología. Wandering through this expansive site showcasing the various civilisations of Mesoamerica, it wasn’t long before I came across a giant stone head with familiar feathered features and enigmatic grin: Quetzalcoatl! I’d recognise that slippery little sucker anywhere.
By Scott McLennan
Scott McLennan is a journal editor and writer based in Adelaide on Kaurna Country. Much to the disappointment of axolotls worldwide, he can neither float nor regenerate missing limbs.
Published in ed#735
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