Wild Hearts Wild Life – The Wild Hearts!

These days, captive bred axolotls come in a wide array of beautiful colors. I currently have four axolotls of my own - a wild type, a melanoid, and two melanoid leucistics. Three out of four of my axolotls are breeder quality animals. Back in 2022, I bred my first axolotl clutch! Raising up all the babies was an enjoyable experience for me, although some aspects, such as finding them all happy new homes, proved to be a challenge. The melanoid babies were particularly hard for me to get good photos of. I found that a lot of people who were looking for melanoids seemed to prefer really dark, as black as possible, axolotl. Hey, I get it. My own melanoid, Gilly, is usually really darkly colored and she's beautiful. The problem? Well, sometimes my little melanoids looked really really dark, and other times they...didn't. So what gives? Can axolotls change color? Yes, to an extent, axolotls can change color! They won't be able to switch from one morph to another. So your leucistic (light colored/pink) axolotl won't suddenly look like a melanoid (dark colored/black). But an individual axolotl's color can vary a bit, usually from a pale to a darker version of whatever morph they are. Axolotls, especially darker morphs, will often change color to more closely match their environment. So, if you prefer your axolotl looking darker, putting him/her in an enclosure with dark colored substrate can help! Increased blood flow, especially to the gills and tail, during times of increased activity can also give your axolotl more of a red/pink hue. This is especially noticeable in lighter colored axolotls. Baby axolotls changing colors a bit as they age is normal as well. Dirty leucistic axolotls will often develop darker markings as they age, for example. In very rare instances, adult axolotls may lose melanin, which can cause dramatic changes in their coloration. This has been seen in both wild type and melanoid axolotls. They'll start off darkly colored, and gradually lighten, sometimes so much so that they'll appear to look more like a leucistic axolotl after their transformation. This is rare, and so far the exact cause of why this happens is unknown. All the photos of the axolotl that I'm posting in this article are of the same animal. They were one of the babies from my 2022 clutch, which is why they are watermarked with my Morph Market store name. I started off keeping a lot of the babies in bare bottom tanks over a white shelving unit. The lighter colored environment really didn't do the darker colored babies any favors. I decided to leave this little one's tub out on my feeding station, which is darker colored than my shelving unit, overnight. The next morning, this is what they looked like... A bit darker right? And you can see that their gills are looking a bit redish as well. I accidently spooked this little one when I walked into my animal room, so they were swimming around their tub pretty vigorously. Here's another comparison photo of the same axolotl again… Those two photos were taken around 12 hours apart. Hard to Photograph Hopefully you can get a bit of an appreciation for how hard to can be to photograph animals that can change the intensity of their color. Sometimes I'm able to take amazing photos of my axolotls. The mels will look dark, and the leucistics will have especially pink gills. Other times, my axolotls look pale with much less intense coloring. Axolotls and Stress Another thing I'd like to point out, is that it's also common for axolotls to look paler when they are stressed. While it's generally safe to ship axolotls, it's normal for them to look especially pale after the stress of being shipped. I always try to inform new axolotl owners of this, so they don't receive their new little ones and think either that something is wrong, or maybe even that they received the wrong animal. https://wildheartswildlife.com/is-it-safe-to-ship-axolotls Do Leucistic Axolotls Change Color Too? I've noticed that the color changes in leucistic axolotls are not nearly as dramatic as their darkly colored counterparts. The main color change in leucistic axolotls, as I already mentioned, will be their gills. Their gills may look pale pink when they are just relaxing and not moving around much. They will change to a darker, more vibrant, pink when your axolotl is active due to increased blood flow to the gills. If you have a freckled, or dirty leucistic, axolotl, you may notice the dark spots appear darker when your axolotl is housed on darker substrate. In Conclusion... Axolotls have the ability to slightly change color, mostly between a paler and darker version of their genetic color. You may also see slight red or pink hues, especially on their gills and tails, during time of increased activity. Axolotl have the ability to slightly change their color based on their environment. In general, a darker tank will cause axolotls to display darker colors, and vise versa. It's important to also know, however, that axolotl who are stressed and/or sick will also often display paler colors. Usually this will be accompanied by other symptoms, such as lack of appetite. And in case you're still wondering, No - axolotls cannot drastically change their colors instantly, and they do not come in vibrant neon colors (who else has seen that video short!?). What do you think? If you have an axolotl, have you noticed him/her changing colors at all? ---------------------- Unfortunately, Wild Hearts Wild Life has been dealing with content scrappers stealing our content and posting it to other websites without permission. 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