This Japanese Red-Bellied Newt was part of the payload aboard the Space Shuttle’s STS-65 mission, which carried a few odd creatures into orbit for the International Microgravity Laboratory 2 experiment.
Part of the reason these newts went up was that it’s easy to make them lay eggs on a schedule, and researchers wanted to see what happened to embryos that form in near-zero gravity.
She looks… unexcited about the trip, doesn’t she?
Oh, hey. Space. Yeah.