Odd coloured baby?

[Lua]

Hey well my axolotls hatched on the ferry back from my holiday in Ireland ( lol nightmare ) but after a traumatic start all is going well and they are all getting fat on chunks of frozen bloodworm (see first pic ) apart from the weird little guy in the second picture who is so runty he can only take the tiniest of daphnia! He's also a completely different colour from his siblings, black with flecks of green, and his eyes are just 2 black dots. Is he a different type, or just a wimpy wild type? All 26 of his siblings have turned out like the ones in the first pic , I'm assuming they're wild type/ leucistic? any thoughts on the little oddity would be appreciated, for now he's in his own tub so he doesn't get bullied

 

[callina]

Hi,

your little guy in the second picture is a very beautiful colored larva. I suppose, he is a melanoid, that´s why he looks so different.
I´ve heared that melanoid axies will grow a bit slowier than the others, but I don´t know if it´s true. I have no experiences in raising melanoids.

Tina

 

[Aaran]

That 2nd looks like a melanoid with abit of golden

i wonder how nice this one will turn out,

and i like the look of the middle lotl on the first pick, possible piebald?

 

[Lua]

hey guys thanks for your commentsI was thinking melanoid too, but l really have no idea.l was just surprised by how different he was from the rest, mabye it'll be an ugly duckling thing and he'll blossom into a really nice looking axie. fingers crossed! golden and melanoid sounds interesting... Yeah the pinkish ones are hard to work out too, the parents were a wild type and a leucistic, but I got the eggs on ebay so who knows what kind of mad gene combinations have gone into the offspring!it would be great if they were piebald. but I'm thinking more muddy leucistic at the moment. I'm the owner of 27 little axie mongrels!

 

[callina]

the little guy in the middle isn´t a piebald. It´s a leucistic.
At this age they can change their color very often. Many leucistics have much spots and look a bit like wild type. But the spots are only at their neural system and the gills are lighter. When they grow up, they will loose most of their spots.

Tina

 

[Lua]

yeah from what I've heard piebalds are very rare indeed! nice to know there's definitely some leucistics in there, love the way they turn out from what you're saying it seems like a 50 / 50 mix of wild type and leucistic with that weird little melanoid too.I'll have to give it a suitably wimpy name..Neville ? Herman?

 

[aeviette]

The little black and speckly one is beautiful!

 

[Lua]

aw you're too kind! I'm going to have to readjust my view of it from "the weirdo" to "the beauty" I always thought it was quite cute, hence it getting a tub of its own! Now to nurture it into adulthood and sell its offspring for extortionate prices jokes but I'm still puzzled how l ended up with a single melanoid, some kind of genetic fluke?

 

[xxianxx]

ive got twenty baby axolotls about two months old and the size difference is suprising one is about three inchs long and the smallest is about one cm(sorry for the different scales of measurment i was in school when the uk went metric and it messed up my understanding of weights/measurement etc lol)

 

[Lua]

ive got twenty baby axolotls about two months old and the size difference is suprising one is about three inchs long and the smallest is about one cm(sorry for the different scales of measurment i was in school when the uk went metric and it messed up my understanding of weights/measurement etc lol)

they grow so fast! mine have just sprouted front arms, I swear I can see them growing, am cramming them with food in the hope of creating monsters.. already there's a big difference in sizes, some are much bigger than others.Cant wait until they get as big as yours, only about a month to go... although I predict a bit of a housing crisis, are yours in tubs or a tank? I take it they've moved on from daphnia brine shrimp?mine took wee chunks of bloodworm after about 5 days of hatching although I have to dance it around in front of their noses in a kind of water flea pantomime...

 

[oceanblue]

I'm in the runt wildtype camp. The melanoid gene is recessive but if present in both parents 25% of the offspring will have it. Only one in 27 is not normal genetics.

Shine a torch on it and the others and use a magnifying glass to see if you can see sparkle spots in the gills. If they are present it is not melanoid

 

[xxianxx]

they grow so fast! mine have just sprouted front arms, I swear I can see them growing, am cramming them with food in the hope of creating monsters.. already there's a big difference in sizes, some are much bigger than others.Cant wait until they get as big as yours, only about a month to go... although I predict a bit of a housing crisis, are yours in tubs or a tank? I take it they've moved on from daphnia brine shrimp?mine took wee chunks of bloodworm after about 5 days of hatching although I have to dance it around in front of their noses in a kind of water flea pantomime...

I seperated them into three batchs according to size, ten of the smallest were placed in my outside daphnia bucket (its really big), eight in a small tank and the two largest in another im feeding the inside ones frozen bloodworm/daphnia/worms/pellets/shrimp, the outside ones are eating a natural diet of bloodworm/daphnia/mosquito larvae/freshwater shrimp and to be honest the ones outside have caught up with their bigger siblings. Im considering feeding my next batch of axys a live diet for longer than i usually do since it seems to enduce an improved growth rate.

 

[Lua]

I'm in the runt wildtype camp. The melanoid gene is recessive but if present in both parents 25% of the offspring will have it. Only one in 27 is not normal genetics.

Shine a torch on it and the others and use a magnifying glass to see if you can see sparkle spots in the gills. If they are present it is not melanoid

thanks for helping me out, I tried the torch trick and to be honest at the moment its just too tiny to tell. I agree in terms of genetic ratios its very bizarre if it turns out melanoid so I do have my doubts! although I only got a portion of the total batch of eggs which could explain it. suppose I'll just have to wait + see how it turns out, over the last few days it's been paling + turning a kind of ghosty grey round the gilIs, which is interesting

 

[yellowpebble]

I found this picture on caudata culture and it looks very similar to your different larva! Its definatley melanoid, you can tell by the total black eyes. Hopefully it will keep its gold patches

http://www.caudata.org/cc/images/species/Ambystoma/A_mex2PACKER_large.jpg

 

[MereB]

Beautiful little critters you have there. The little oddity is definitely a melanoid and looks just like Hoo Dee Nee did at that size and several of the other melanoids from the same clutch and I too had hoped that it would keep the gold but alas the black slowly spread into the gold turning it green and finally totally black like any other melanoid Enjoy it while it lasts gold spots or not it will be a beautiful black melanoid.

I would bet there were more melanoids in the batch and when they were picking out yours they only managed to grab the one that you see there now.

I'll see if I can find a good progression of pics of Hoo Dee for you.
Mere.

ok found them. I had 12 like this and all 12 have now gone completely black

A few days old through to a week ago - 6 1/2 months. Hope it helps.

 

[mewsie]

Aieee! I'm jealous of that little melanoid one.

And Hoo Dee Nee is such a darling.

 

[Lua]

Beautiful little critters you have there. The little oddity is definitely a melanoid and looks just like Hoo Dee Nee did at that size and several of the other melanoids from the same clutch and I too had hoped that it would keep the gold but alas the black slowly spread into the gold turning it green and finally totally black like any other melanoid Enjoy it while it lasts gold spots or not it will be a beautiful black melanoid.

I would bet there were more melanoids in the batch and when they were picking out yours they only managed to grab the one that you see there now.

I'll see if I can find a good progression of pics of Hoo Dee for you.
Mere.

ok found them. I had 12 like this and all 12 have now gone completely black

A few days old through to a week ago - 6 1/2 months. Hope it helps.

Yai! That's great news, I really hoped it was melanoid If it grows up to be half the axolotl Hoo Dee is, I'll be happy! (lol flattery, but seriously, your axolotl is just gorgeous! Liking the name too ) All I can say is he'd better hold onto those gold blotches or it'll be a trip down the local duck pond for him! Just kidding, he's already the favoured axie! The photos are great, they give me an idea of how he should turn out. Thanks for taking the time to help me identify him

 

[Aimzs Lotties]

Agreed. Hoo Dee Nee is gorgeous! Good work for posting all the pics Mere!

 

[yellowpebble]

great pictures, also agreed! Such a pretty silky black melanoid <3

 

[Aimzs Lotties]

Hey all, on a kinda unrelated-ish matter.. One of my dark brown babies has one eye with a shiny ring and one without..? Am I just not looking right?