Salamander Fish: The Real Salamanderfish vs the Axolotl

The salamander fish, or salamanderfish, is Lepidogalaxias salamandroides, a small freshwater fish found only in southwestern Australia. It is a true fish with fins and scales, not an amphibian: a slender, cylindrical fish whose females reach 7 cm (Wikipedia). It lives in semi-permanent pools and small streams in the Northcliffe area, across a range of about 180 km between the Blackwood and Kent rivers, in very acidic water of pH 3.0 to 6.5 (Wikipedia).

Scientists find it interesting for its family tree. Wikipedia describes it as an old, isolated lineage that is the sister group to all other Euteleostei, the large group that holds most living bony fish, and it has its own order, Lepidogalaxiiformes.

Three features make it look and behave unlike other fish:

• It survives drought buried in sand: when its pools evaporate it burrows into the sand and waits, a dormancy called aestivation (Wikipedia). Stock photo libraries even carry sequences of salamander fish burrowing into mud (Getty Images)
• It turns its head, not its eyes: its reddish eyes are fixed and lack eye muscles, but it can bend its neck in any direction (Wikipedia), an unusual ability for a fish
• Internal fertilisation: males have a modified anal fin, folded strongly to the left or right and sheathed in greatly enlarged scales, used to fertilise females internally (Wikipedia)

No. Salamanders are amphibians, related to frogs and newts (Natural History Museum, London). The salamanderfish only borrowed the name. The confusion runs the other way too: the axolotl, often called the Mexican walking fish, is not a fish but a salamander, Ambystoma mexicanum (NHM). Image libraries file several amphibians under 'salamander fish', including the axolotl, the olm, the Chinese giant salamander and amphiumas (Getty Images). A quick check: fish have fins and no legs; salamanders, axolotls included, have four legs.

The axolotl is one species of salamander, in the same genus as the tiger salamander, Ambystoma tigrinum, and part of its species complex (Wikipedia). What sets it apart is neoteny: it keeps its frilly external gills and other juvenile features and stays in the water all its life, breeding without ever going through the metamorphosis most salamanders do (NHM).

• Size: up to 30 cm and 50 to 200 g (NHM); Wikipedia gives 15 to 45 cm with about 23 cm typical
• Lifespan: 10 to 15 years in the wild (NHM)
• Wild status: Critically Endangered, with only 50 to 1,000 adults thought to be left in the wild (NHM). Surveys in Lake Xochimilco counted about 6,000 per square kilometre in 1998, 1,000 in 2003 and 100 in 2008 (Wikipedia)
• Trade: listed in CITES Appendix II (Wikipedia)

The Vet Desk's price guide (updated 5 January 2026) gives $40 to $100 for a standard axolotl and $150 to $350 for exotic or rare colour morphs. Setting up a tank costs about $430 to $580 on the same guide, and running costs about $66 to $156 a month. The animal is the smallest part of the bill. Check whether keeping them is allowed where you live before buying.

This page does not tell anyone a salamander is safe to eat. What the sources record: axolotls were historically eaten in Mexico; Alexander von Humboldt wrote of people in want who fed on aquatic plant roots, insects and the axolotl (Wikipedia). But the wild axolotl is now critically endangered, and some other salamanders are dangerous. The rough-skinned newt carries tetrodotoxin, the same poison as pufferfish, and some individuals carry enough to kill several adults; a 29-year-old Oregon man died in 1979 after swallowing one (Wikipedia).

If someone has swallowed or chewed a newt or salamander, call your local poison control centre or emergency number straight away, even if they feel fine.

• Legs: the salamanderfish has fins only; the axolotl has four legs
• Gills: the axolotl has feathery external gills on the sides of its head (NHM); the salamanderfish has ordinary fish gills under gill covers
• Size: salamanderfish females reach 7 cm; axolotls up to 30 cm (Wikipedia; NHM)
• Where: the salamanderfish lives only in southwestern Australia; wild axolotls only in the canals of Xochimilco and Chalco in Mexico (Wikipedia; NHM)

A side-on photo in FishLens will say whether you are looking at a fish. For fish features to check, see key features to identify fish.

Research and drafting for this page were assisted by AI and checked line by line against the sources listed below. Every number names the organisation it comes from; where sources disagree we say so instead of picking one silently. Prices and counts are given with the date we checked them. If you find an error, tell us and we will correct it.