By Ben Guarino

The axolotl is a salamander that heals without scarring. It can regrow its limbs, jaw, skin and even parts of its brain and spinal cord. The salamander can regrow a severed arm dozens of times and always makes a perfect copy. These amphibians are, according to biologist Karen Echeverri, “the superstars of regeneration.”

I saw dozens of axolotls last week at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., all of them pink and translucent. Frilly gills festoon the sides of their heads. (Native animals grow green-black skin in Mexico’s streams, where they are endangered.) The translucent animals are a microscopist’s dream. Read more …