The axolotl can regrow a lost leg, a piece of its heart, parts of its spinal cord, and even sections of its brain with no scarring... | Space Daily

Editors note: This article mentions research done at the MBL by Karen Echeverri that mapped part of the molecular switch that allows axolotl spinal cord regeneration.

An axolotl can lose a leg and, given the right conditions, regrow it over several weeks to months — nerves, bone, cartilage, skin, blood vessels, five perfectly patterned toes, and no scar tissue where the wound used to be. The same salamander can regrow parts of its heart, sections of its spinal cord, chunks of retina, and even portions of its forebrain, producing brand new neurons that wire themselves into the surviving circuitry. In the wild, this animal exists in a single place: a shrinking network of canals and lake remnants at Xochimilco, on the southern edge of Mexico City, where the most recent surveys estimate fewer than a thousand adults remain. The mismatch is almost hard to hold in one thought. An organism that has quietly solved problems human medicine has been circling for a century is being pushed out of existence by carp, tilapia, wastewater and urban sprawl in a lake system that was already ancient when the Aztecs built causeways across it.

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Source: The axolotl can regrow a lost leg, a piece of its heart, parts of its spinal cord, and even sections of its brain with no scarring, and yet in the wild it survives in a single network of canals on the outskirts of Mexico City, where fewer than 1,000 individuals are thought to remain | Space Daily