Videogames ‘Fortnite,’ ‘Minecraft’ Catapult Smiley Salamander to Global Fame - The Wall Street Journal

Pollution and other man-made ills weigh heavily on Mexico's axolotl, a rare salamander popular among Aztecs back in the day.

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Its population in the wild has fallen by something like 99% in the past three decades, one expert said. Yet the creature's popularity has never been higher, propelled by the same modern age chasing them toward extinction.

A global audience of a half-billion gamers have gotten to know the axolotl, which largely cluster in the canals around Mexico City and look like little dragons with a goofy smile. The videogame "Fortnite" trotted out axolotl characters in 2020, and "Minecraft" followed suit last summer.

Roblox, a platform with millions of user-made games, has dozens of axolotl-centric ones, including "Axolotl Tycoon" and "Axolotl Paradise." Axolotls appear in "Adopt Me!," one of the most-played games on Roblox.

An axolotl character in the videogame 'Fortnite.'

Photo: Epic Games

All of the exposure has spawned axolotl memes, YouTube videos, coloring books and nonfungible tokens. Build-A-Bear Workshop Inc. added an axolotl doll to its stores. The Bank of Mexico put an axolotl on the side of the country's new 50-peso bill, and an axolotl museum opened in Mexico City.

Dylan Stouffer, like many other young gamers, wanted a real one. "I just got obsessed with them," said the 8-year-old, who lives in Johnstown, Pa.

Pet-shop owners say demand for axolotls has surged, and stores are having trouble keeping the endangered species in stock.

Dylan got three, which he named Fireball, SpongeBob and Toothless. His mother, Nicole Baughman, is just as infatuated. She has an axolotl T-shirt, doll and blanket. She also runs a TikTok account dedicated to educating new axolotl owners. "A lot of people think they're like goldfish, and you just toss them in a tank," said Ms. Baughman.

Care and feeding is messier in real life than on-screen. Axolotls can grow up to about a foot in length and require fish tanks with dechlorinated tap water. For many children, the tanks are too deep to reach into. That often leaves parents to serve meals with tweezers and pick up droppings with turkey basters.

The Blum family's pet axolotl, Louis.

Photo: Amy Blum

Elijah Blum, age 8, and the family's axolotl tank.

Photo: Amy Blum

Amy Blum,

of Monroe, Wis., has been tending to Louis, an axolotl her mother bought for Ms. Blum's 8-year-old gamer son, Elijah. "The feeding took a while to get used to," she said. "I don't exactly love chopping up worms."

Axolotls must be kept cool. Marcia and Janine Kemp of Gilbert, Ariz., saved hundreds of dollars on an aquarium chiller by instead keeping frozen water bottles in a tank to cool Puddles, the axolotl they got for their 9-year-old son. The family has four dogs, two cats, a gecko, a bird, a tortoise and several fish. Puddles requires the most effort, Marcia Kemp said. "I didn't think we realized how intense it was going to be."

Jake Pak, a breeder and seller of axolotls in Dallas, worries that young buyers will be disappointed that their new pets don't perform the same tricks as the digital variety, like wearing sports jerseys and walking on two feet.

Jason Wilson said a neighbor checking on his house near Edmond, Okla., while he and his family were away thought she had stumbled upon a tragedy. The neighbor saw the two Wilson family axolotls motionless in their tank.

"She called me freaking out," Mr. Wilson said. He explained to the neighbor that except for mealtime, "they just lay around."

Axolotls made their debut on 'Minecraft' last June.

Photo: Microsoft/Mojang Studios

Axolotl ownership is a commitment. They can live 15 years. "A lot of kids who are buying these axolotls will be taking them off to college," Mr. Pak said.

That is, the axolotls that survive. While they have the remarkable ability to regrow a lost limb, they aren't immune to cannibalism.

Lauren Silverman and her husband recently bought two for their 9-year-old son, Sam. The boy named them Maxolotl and Toothless. The Silvermans, who live in a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand, added Snowy to their axolotl tank a few months later.

Within days, Toothless, named for a popular movie dragon, swallowed Snowy whole, "like a gummy bear," Ms. Silverman said. "You could see the outline of Snowy in Toothless."

Cairo Rios, 8 years old, got a axolotl after seeing them in 'Minecraft.'

Photo: Georgina Molina

Maxolotl fell prey next. Toothless bit off its tank-mate's tail and a limb.

Axolotlmania wouldn't have erupted if they weren't so adorable, according to Boston-based anthropologist Cynthia Miller. "We have some hard-wired reactions to cute things," she said. "They trigger endorphins, giving us feelings of happiness."

The good feelings stretch back to the Aztecs, who named the amphibian after Xolotl, the god of monsters. The axolotl in English is pronounced ak-suh-lot-ul. They are ajolote in Spanish and pronounced ah-ho-lo-te. In their native Nahuatl, it approximates ah-show-lotl.

"The Aztecs were wild about them," said Matias Vera-Cruz Dutrénit, chief executive of a collective in Mexico City that owns a brewery with axolotl beer labels.

Breeders and buyers say the world's new interest in axolotls could save them from extinction. Urbanization, water pollution and invasive predators in their natural habitat have reduced their density from around 6,000 per square kilometer in the 1990s to fewer than 36 per square kilometer today, said Luis Zambrano, a biologist with the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

An axolotl pulled from the waters of Xochimilco last month in Mexico City.

Photo: TOYA SARNO JORDAN/REUTERS

A booming population of pet axolotls isn't an ideal solution, said Pamela Valencia, founder of Mexico City's new axolotl museum.

"Axolotls are wild animals," she said. "Having one as a pet is like if you kept a jaguar in your backyard."

Georgina Molina didn't know what she was looking at when her 8-year-old son, Cairo Rios, texted her a photo of an axolotl a few months ago. He had seen them in "Minecraft" and wanted his own.

A brown axolotl named Axel now occupies a 40-gallon tank in the kitchen of the family's Cape Coral, Fla., home. Cairo enjoys its company. "A real-life axolotl is better than the videogame version," he said.

Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com and Salvador Rodriguez at salvador.rodriguez@wsj.com