Image source - Original caption: "This little guy from California is hundreds of times more toxic than cyanide and has few natural predators. Evolution is increasing the newt's toxicity in a neurotoxin arms race with predators that try to build immunities to it."
Doesn't this guy look like a little magical magma creature? Looking at it, I was reminded of salamanders, but newts look way cooler. That fluorescent underside seems so magical, a bit radioactive, as if it could create light. Newt lanterns for caves!
Browsing r/NatureIsFuckingLit/, I also found this picture of magma:
Image source - Original caption: "Lava from the Kilauea Volcano of Hawaii"
The earliest mention of newts' eyes having magical properties that I've found is by Shakespeare (Macbeth).
2nd Witch:
"Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and howlet's wing,--
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."
(Source)
Don't attempt to make a newt potion. You'll probably die. But its texture really looks cool. It's sad I can't touch the little guy on the picture (be it because it's a picture or because if it were real, it would be hyper poisonous).
I learned the word "newt" from Runescape. There's a quest where you need the eye of a newt to do some witchcraft. I think that you buy it from a witch shop. I also learned the words "axe", "shield", "lobster" and "shrimp", although I didn't know what shrimp were except "little fish" (I was later surprised when I learned that they're simply 'camarones' in Spanish, and are not actually fish).
Before I became interested in newts, I loved the word "salamander" because there's a word I'm intimate with that is a synonym for it. I don't know where I got that salamanders were volcanic creatures that lived in areas filled with magma. Hmm, I was probably wrong. I just read that they live in temperate areas, which means "Characterized by moderate temperatures, weather, or climate; neither hot nor cold", so they can't live in volcanos.
But I like the idea of them living in volcanos. It would be awesome to have volcanic reptiles and not just bacteria. Like dragons! Only tiny. Imagine if geckos were mostly hyper-poisonous fire-breathing little creatures. I think we'd have to have gecko traps in our homes lest they come and murder us in our sleep.
But even then they would be adorable. I love fire too. I'm a bit of a pyromaniac. I wish I could burn things with a thought. I once dreamt I could and I was mesmerised by that dream. It became one of my favourite dreams by far, and I've had a lot of dreams.
I wish I could be a newt sometimes. Just make it my spirit animal and walk in its tiny body on trees and swim in rivers with its awesome tail. It would be cool.
