Question: Why is this axolotl leaking bloodworms?

I work Fridays at a local science museum, where we have five axolotls. Two large adult females in one tank, and an adult male and female in another tank. The male and female produced a batch of eggs earlier this year. We moved the eggs into a 10 gallon to grow and hatch, but only one survived.
The one surviving axie larva is about four inches long now, with lovely frilly gills, and a healthy appetite. We feed him(her?) bloodworms every day, he's almost up to eating an entire cube. Today while I was feeding him, I noticed about a centimeter of bloodworm was poking out from behind his gills, on each side of his head. It appears that the bloodworms are, dare I say, growing from behind his gills. I can't tell if he has holes there, or what?
My boss said that he had seen this before while feeding the baby axolotl, in the past couple weeks.

My question is what on earth are bloodworms sticking out of the back of his head for? How is that possible, and why is it happening? It's worrisome to me, I can't see how this is normal. My only guess is overfeeding, I can't speak for the other people who work here who feed the axolotls during the week, but this is the first time I've seen this today. I hope this isn't problematic and I hope that there's something that can be done if this is a problem.

I don't have pictures right now because I don't have a camera here at work - if any of you wish to see pictures of this, and if it happens again next friday, I will make sure to have my camera on me. Any imput or opinions on this would be extremely appreciated! Thank you!

actually I think its not so unusual, the gills are their mean of breathing, they have "holes" where the water passes through with oxygen, so there's a "canal" between their mouth and gills that communicates with the "outside" (water)

if the axie has his mouth full of worms, I don't think it's so weird that any of them can get into that "canal" that links the mouth and gills to the exterior and so get out from their gills.

I would search for more info on this but I think it's not the first case I hear of a worm escaping through the gills!

That makes sense, now that you mention it - I wouldn't have assumed that axolotls would have holes there for breathing, but then why would they "gulp" for air, eh?
I guess I'm biased to such breathing behaviours being only used by fish
Thanks!
I do intend to try and research this a bit more, however

If anyone else has any more information I would be happy to hear it!

they actually breath through gills, their skin and they also have lungs, that's why sometimes they gulp for air, but their primary breathing system is their gills.

there may be info here: AccessScience | Encyclopedia Article | Respiratory system

daremo said:

I would search for more info on this but I think it's not the first case I hear of a worm escaping through the gills!

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One of mine had this happen to him once, when he was quite new to me. The cube of food had landed in a nice little pile, and Roscoe devoured the whole thing in one go. He had worms coming out of just about everywhere, poor little thing. He looked pretty uncomfortable, took him about 10 minutes to sort himself out, and I learnt a lesson to spread the food out so it didn't happen again!

One of mine had an entire nightcrawler sticking out. She then grabbed the free-end of it, and looked like she had a giant worm piercing around her whole head. It was hilarious!

LOL I love the image of an axie with a worm right round his head too funny.

I wouldn't worry about it. All 3 of mine throw sand back out of those holes while they are doing the "blow the sand out of my mouth so I can eat this worm" thing. Freaked me out the first time I saw them do it, I didn't know they had holes there either but it's an extremely common event in out house. Many times during each feeding when they suck in some sand. Never had a worm come out of there though.

When i feed mine chopped earth worms i often see the inners come out of there gills!! i find it kind of amusing sometimes cause its so strange lol! but then axie's are strange little critters!

Oh goodness that sounds funny but scary at the same time. I'm so glad I found this forum, in case this does happen to me I know not to freak out.

OK so I was taking a close look behind my juveniles head as he was eating yesterday and their heads seem to be attached in a similar manner to fish. Essentually they are connected top and bottom and up each side is open but where fish have that lovely sleek gill flap that sits along their body and protects the gills these guys necks are just open and the gills are on the outside... obviously
He was able to open and close the gap as he was eating when he wanted to swallow it was actually pretty cool to watch

LOL, reminds me of my brother when he was little, he was eating spagghetti and it came out his nose haha. The really gross thing was that he pulled it out and ate it again

When my axie was young he had a bunch of bloodworms sticking out like that as well. After about 30 minutes she was like: "Whoh, wait... there's something sticking out...? " and she kicked at it with her hind leg like a dog. (They came out) It was so cute.