The Sisters of The Sacred Salamander

As Queen Michelle pointed out in her insightful and honest post yesterday, one of the true joys of KOS is that we can write about whatever moves us.

So in the spirit of freedom, today I'm going to talk about axolotls

Our Jenny went through a phase of asking me what my favourite things were - Animal, colour, food, you name it.  When it came to animal I almost always said the narwhal and axolotl.

The more unlikely the creature, the more I like them.

 I love cartoon version of these creatures too. Thankfully makers on etsy share my love and you can find a whole world of wonderful things there.

Also known as Mexican walking fish, this is a salamander, an amphibian.  However axolotls are unusual among amphibians, in that they reach adulthood without undergoing metamorphosis: instead of developing lungs and taking to land, the adults remain aquatic and with gills.

In Mexico they are regarded to have healing properties and even magical abilities. This is doubtless because of it's ability to regenerate parts of it's body after injury. Even it's brain. So as you can imagine modern science is sitting up and taking an interest too.

Sadly however the axolotl  has almost been wiped out of its freshwater habitat by pollution and over-fishing. But a wonderful story on Radio 4 ( listen here ) sees scientists from Chester Zoo explain how an order of nuns hold the key to bringing it back from the brink. They have been breeding them for many many years to help them produce a cough medicine. 

The recipe is of course a secret. Watch the video above. It's sure to put a smile on your face.

I'm mindful that rather than buy another necklace or cushion I don’t really need, I should find out more about the splendid Sisters of the Sacred Salamander and send a donation to help them in their fight.

Queen Marie x