The name of my first pet was Zippy. Zippy, Zippy, Zippy! Zippy the axolotl. I remember him so well. Boy could that axolotl move! That fella could shoot up and down his tank in no time. Boy could he move! Zippy by name and Zippy by nature. Of course he’s a long time gone now. A long time gone. Someone put some iodine-based cleaning agent in the tank and that was the end of him! Goodbye Zippy. The iodine forced him to enter the adult phase of his existence in a hurry and he straightaway drowned because he didn’t have gills anymore. Adult phase Zippy was no more able to breathe underwater than you or I could! No sir. Found him dead the next morning, floating upside down in his tank. As dead as dead can be. Axolotls are a neotenous species, as you probably know. Spend their entire lives in the juvenile phase. Or at least they are supposed to, barring unfortunate accidents. Like what happened to Zippy. I haven’t thought of Zippy for a long time now. Maybe fifty, sixty years. Boy oh boy could he ever move though! That Zippy. Zippy the axolotl. Zippy, Zippy, Zippy. He was something else. Makes me chuckle out loud to think of him. What a character. Funny how you remember things. I used to spend hours as a kid watching him go up and down in his tank. Up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down…It sure does take me back, thinking of good old Zippy…