FYI: Very strange Axolotl color morph...

[jacob]

I am holding on to it for breeding in the future. Hopefully there will be more!

 

[lorie]

hahaha Jack Sparrow HAHA our axies could make a new pirates of the carribean film (I got one called The Kracken)haha

 

[sinead]

Wow he'll turn out a stunner

 

[jacob]

Now you can see the back legs. The lighter gills are much shorter than the ones on the darker side.

 

[jay]

Maybe pirate will turn out as a golden Leucistic. Jacob i think you just designed a new coloured axolotl lol. What colour are the parents? Golden albino and Leucistic, yes

 

[sinead]

Maybe his pigmentations might spread out as ages

 

[sinead]

oh and he said the parents were a female wild type and a male white albino

 

[jay]

Oh, thanks

 

[jacob]

Sinead's right, the male was white albino and the female was a wild-type. This is the only larvae from the clutch (originally 200 larvae)that was different from the rest. None of it's sibblings are white or gold albino, all are wild-type and leucistic. Some of the leucistics have lighter eyes than I am used to, or I'm just seeing things, I'll try to post a pic of some of them.

 

[sinead]

Oh please do!

 

[Jake]

Update on "Pirate Gary"

He's grown quite a bit. Now he's about 3.5 inches long and eating inch long earthworms. I'll post more pics of him/her as soon as I can. The set of gills with no pigment are much shorter than the other set.

I think I was just imagining that it's sibbling's eyes were lighter, but Pirate is still a stunner.

 

[peterj]

His whole left side seems to be lighter, as if the pigment cells were distributed lopsided in his early development. Are there any records of chimeric axolotls (individuals formed from fused embryos).

 

[mantighoul]

...as for chimeras

Oh chimeric embryos, that is exciting, well most i know are ones creted in the laboratory. In a certain stage of developement they will fuse two parts of two eggs togethere and axolotl will form. Use to study things like fusing a genetically fatal disorder guy with a heathy one, study of pigmentation, cell ressearch, grafting, etc. I will just say this, the way axolol immune system handles transplants is amazing, if your ever up for a fun read! I do not know of any chimeric axolotls outside of the laboratory.

you know that picture of those axolotls with a black head and a white body? Laboratory Chimera from my understanding.

 

[Jake]

Pirate Gary Update Photo.

Here he is today, what do you think?

 

[kiwitwist]

So weird!! Thanks for continuing to update on this guy!! It's VERY interesting!!

 

[mantighoul]

There is something interesting going on here. Thanks for the pics. fascinating, indeed. Definately appear similar in appearnce to a chimeric creature, but, I do not know how a chimeric individual could be creted in a creature that uses external fetilization. I may lean that it could be exhibiting mosaicsm (two populations of cells with different genotypes in one individual fromone fertilized egg) I am mostly only familiar with this condition in humans. In the lab, mosaicism is studied in Drosophila that i am aware of. Argh starting bio-lab classes is not coming soon enough

this article is about Endopolyploidy and there is a section of it relating to axolotl discussing mosaics, "chromosomal chimeras"
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/38/12/1073.pdf

 

[Jennewt]

Very interesting, Jacob, I'm glad to see that this guy is healthy and doing well. I can't wait to see him/her as an adult.

I do not know how a chimeric individual could be creted in a creature that uses external fetilization.

Umm, axolotls do have internal fertilization. I don't know enough about chimerism to understand exactly how matters. My thought was that there could have been a somatic mutation when the embryo was at the 2-cell stage, resulting in such a half-and-half animal, but I'm sure there are other mechanisms as well.

 

[Jake]

The male (who is Pirate Gary's father) belonged to a friend across town, but he's moving out of state and couldn't bring them with, so he sold him to me.

 

[naymo]

I love this little guy.
Hes absolutely stunning.
Good on him for being different!

 

[Kaysie]

Pirate Gary is pretty spiffy. Chimaerism is alive and well!