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any of several salamanders of the genus Ambystoma that inhabit lakes and ponds of Mexico and remain in the larval stage as sexually mature adults.
Historical Examples

Postscript; dryness of the air the probable cause of the assumed reversion of the Amblystoma to the axolotl, 613.
Studies in the Theory of Descent (Volumes 1 and 2) August Weismann

This is the Amblystoma into which the axolotl has been ascertained to transform.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 Various

It must further be added that the axolotl itself can lose the gills without thereby becoming transformed into an Amblystoma.
Studies in the Theory of Descent (Volumes 1 and 2) August Weismann

Is the axolotl adult when it acquires its reproductive organs?
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 3 Various

The axolotl rarely or never undergoes metamorphosis in its native country, 565.
Studies in the Theory of Descent (Volumes 1 and 2) August Weismann

Also in the axolotl, where there are douple pits, placed side by side, not only superiorly but at the same time inferiorly.
On the Genesis of Species St. George Mivart

In the axolotl it remains according to Stieda as a simple tube with nearly uniformly thick walls.
The Works of Francis Maitland Balfour, Volume III (of 4) Francis Maitland Balfour

When found in the terrestrial form, the axolotl is called Amblystoma tigrinum, and is classed among the salamanders.
Parallel Paths Thomas William Rolleston

The distinguished Paul Bert declared that the young of the axolotl could not form pigment when reared in a yellow light.
The Dawn of Reason James Weir

What first made this view appear to me erroneous, was the appearance of the living Amblystomas bred from my axolotl larv.
Studies in the Theory of Descent (Volumes 1 and 2) August Weismann

noun
any of several aquatic salamanders of the North American genus Ambystoma, esp A. mexicanum (Mexican axolotl), in which the larval form (including external gills) is retained throughout life under natural conditions (see neoteny): family Ambystomidae
any of various other North American salamanders in which neoteny occurs or is induced
n.

1786, genus of Mexican salamanders, from Spanish, from Nahuatl, literally “servant of water,” from atl “water” + xolotl “slippery or wrinkled one, servant, slave” [cf. Frances Karttunen, “An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl”].