axolotl. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

axolotl.

Principal English Translation:

a salamander-like fish, aquatic and gilled, that can regenerate parts of its body that might be eaten by another axolotl; these were prized animals, bought and sold; they are still found in Lake Xochimilco, but they are endangered (see Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axolotl)

Orthographic Variants:

axulutl, axollotl, asolotl

IPAspelling:

ɑːʃoːloːtɬ

Frances Karttunen:

ĀXŌLŌ-TL pl: -MEH axolotl, edible larval salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum) / batracio con branquias persistentes... los mexicanos lo utilizaban y lo utilizan todavía como alimento (S), ajolote, pez conocido de cuatro pies, que menstrua como las mujeres (R) [(1)Zp.142,(3)Xp.29,(1)Rp.64]. See Ā-TL, XŌLŌ-TL.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 15.

Attestations from sources in English:

See an image that represents axolotl in the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities, 2020-present).

A painting of a citlalaxolotl appears in the Digital Florentine Codex, Book 11, f. 76r.
Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 11: Earthly Things", fol. 76r, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/76r/images/4e96b687-8... Accessed 29 October 2025.

yn asolotl vei nahutetl cacavatl ypatihv yn çan tepitzin vntetl etetl ipatihv in cacavatl = A large salamander is worth 4 cacao beans, a small one is worth 2 or 3 cacao beans (Tlaxcala, 1545)
Beyond the Codices, eds. Arthur J.O. Anderson, Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1976), Doc. 34, 210–211.

ma ticcohuacan yn tetl. yn quahuitl. ma yehuatl yca. yn atlan chaneque yn atlan onoque ӯ michin yn axollotl yhuan in cueyatl. yn acocillin. yn anenez yn acohuatl. yn axaxayacatl. yn izcahuitli. yhuan yn canauahtli yn quachilli = yn yacaçintli. yn ixquich yn totome yn atlan chaneque = Let us buy stone and wood by means of water life, the fish, salamanders, frogs, crayfish, dragonfly larvae, water snakes, waterfly eggs, and red shellfish that live in the water; and the ducks, American coots, all the birds that live in the water. (central Mexico, early seventeenth century)
Codex Chimalpahin: Society and Politics in Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Culhuacan, and Other Nahuatl Altepetl in Central Mexico; The Nahuatl and Spanish Annals and Accounts Collected and Recorded by don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Susan Schroeder (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), vol. 1, 106–107.

axulutl atepucatel = salamander; tadpole (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, ed. Thelma D. Sullivan, et al. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 202.

themes:

Animals, Bugs, Insects, Reptiles, Fish, etc.