The Swamp Chicken (aka the Axolotl)
I made a visit to the Vancouver Aquarium last week and stocked up on cool photos and vids of strange, talented, scary, and just plain awesome sea creatures. This is the first of a series of informative sea creature posts.
Today’s post is dedicated to the chicken of the swamp, the Axolotl (aka the Ajolote, Axlotl, or Whooper Rooper).
The poor little bugger is facing extinction in its native Mexico due to pollution, new nonnative predator fish, and people who have been cooking them as a local delicacy since the 14th century.
Unusual Factoid: The axolotl can regenerate most of its body parts.
What I learned at the Vancouver Aquarium: The axolotl doesn’t like camera flashes. Sorry little guy! He ran away after this picture was taken. 
Wow you are now orienting yourself with the sea creatures. The animal (on photo) is quite strange one…funny looking thing! Good luck Anny…I already heard the podcast of Craig and Linda. Unfortunately, they were not able to have you audio but maybe next time…Rey
Yeah, too bad about the podcast. Craig had asked if we could talk via Skype but my computer just doesn’t like Skype for some reason. At least they mentioned me and had nice things to say.
omg wow so fascinating…how big do these creatures grow up 2???
Hmm, you know what? I don’t know. I had thought the one I took a picture of was a fully grown adult but I might’ve just assumed that because he was the biggest one in the tank.
Man what an ugly looking fish.. surely tho if it has the ability to “Rgeenerate” its organs this should be reaseached in depth
>regeneration is the key to immortality
Regeneration, in the biology context, is the ability to regrow damaged tissue. Known as a heal factor in the science-fiction genre, it is arguably the most useful ability to have and could be the key to immortality.
Most animals regenerate, with the exception of mammals. Mammals, when injured, will get scarring. They also grow old. Both of these traits originate from Gene P21, which mammals evolved during the time of the dinosaurs as a population control and to reduce competition for food. Gene P21 inhibits our natural regenerative powers and suppressing it in laboratory mice has been proven to restore the ability.
Regenerating has some interesting effects on the individual. Because DNA is damaged slightly every time the cell divides, fast healers should be more prone to cancer, as their cells divide more often. Fortunately, our immune systems are programmed to kill damaged cells, creating a shorter cell life cycle for the person who regenerates. Of course, this means we have to regenerate those damaged cells. Whether or not this escalates is unknown, although it doesn’t seem to have much effect on non-mammals. Seriously, tortoises can live for 200 years without getting cancer.
These grow somewhere from 20 up to 45cm
The regeneration process is called a rudimentary animal,
It works so that the “supposed to happen grow” never gets forgotten in the DNa and cells of the animal
They experimented with this process on humans that lost a finger, i believe they grinded up some pig stomachs or blathers to reactivate our own regeneration cells we all own especially when we are kids.
The “immortality” story comes from the chemicals that build up every time the cell devides, creatures like this have a system build in that when the cell splits the chemicals don’t build up in them, therefore they can split more often without the cell being fully filled up with chemicals, in other words gets old.
These adorable animals get up to 15 ears old, for a creature this small it’s like being 150 or even older