11/20/2022 0 Comments Axolotl metamorphosis![]() ![]() Because it normally doesn’t metamorphose, it can (like most non-morphing species) get the most out of a stable underwater habitat and whatever food might be there. The axolotl actually gets bonus points for this. Axolotls beat that because they rarely transform at all in adulthood, though some test subjects that were fed thyroid tissue morphed automatically. ![]() Some of them can even choose not to (paedomorphosis). The morphing is also encoded into their genes, because they are related to tiger salamanders, many of which metamorphose from their juvenile to adult form. What is especially weird about the axolotl is that it tends to keep its juvenile morphology, which explains the fringe gills and a tail that looks something like a tadpole’s. ![]() “By improving our understanding of the locations of genes in the genome and long stretches of DNA that lie between genes, we are beginning to understand the rules that dictate when and where genes are turned on during development, regeneration, and other processes,” Smith told SYFY WIRE.Īxolotls evolved the ultimate life hack. Geneticist Jeremiah Smith, whose team had previously sequenced the axolotl genome, and who recently leveled up that work in a study of that genome published in PNAS, hopes that this DNA can someday be used to turn fiction into science. Now a team of scientists have expanded on previous genomic sequencing they had done and revealed even more about its biological gameplay. While we won’t be regrowing entire arms or organs anytime soon, the axolotl’s genome could give us some serious cheat codes for regrowing tissue. Axolotls can regenerate limbs and even vital organs - something humans are incapable of outside a video game. You don’t need a Pokéball to catch one, but something else about the axolotl has had scientists in gotta-catch-‘em-all mode: its genes. Though the axolotl looks more like Wooper (the Water/Ground-type Pokémon who was actually inspired by it), this self-regenerating salamander can undergo its own Eevee-lution. ![]()
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