Meet the axolotl
A Mexican salamander that scientists and the internet alike love for their amazing ability to regenerate limbs, as well as their cool looking external gills.
Axolotls are members of the ambystomatidae family and are native to a very small region of mexico. Axolotls were revered by Aztecs. Their place in mythology is quite strange I think they believed it was a god of the sun and death. I guess it was a dog who could transform into an axolotl.
Much of their facination was because their capital city was built on the islands and lakes that the creatures inhabited. But when the Spanish settled in 1521 they drained the lakes and built their city in their place. The first step of driving axolotls toward extinction.
As Mexico City continues to grow and pollute. The axolotl population is pushed further to the brink of extinction.
Today they can only be found in the wild remnants of Mexico's Xochimilco lake complex near Mexico city. They are unique among salamanders because they are neotenic which means they reach adulthood without going through metamorphosis. So they retain all of their Juvenile features.
Most salamanders as they grow they lose their dorsal fin and external gills as they move on land. Axolotls will keep their feathery external gills and remain underwater indefinitely. Although rarely some axolotls actually do go through metamorphosis, however, they still like to remain in the water.
Axolotls can get very big, about 1 foot. And also live very long, about 15 years in the wild. But probably their most interesting feature about them, is their incredible ability to regenerate. Many other amphibians also have the ability to regenerate, but axolotls blow their competition out of the water! Not only can they perfectly and seemingly endlessly regenerate their limbs, but they can also regenerate their spinal cord, jaw, tail, and skin. All without scarring. No matter how many times you cut off their limbs they grow back perfectly, with no scars. Same with their spine. Furthermore, they are 1000X more resistance to cancer than any other creature.
It works like this… After the amputation. The cells at the site of the amputation completely lose their identity. So instead of being skin cells, blood cell, they become stem cell like pluripotent cells, giving them the ability to become any cell that they need to create new perfect limbs. This is what makes their research so valuable to apply towards burn victims, amputees, and even cancer victims.
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Source:
Wiki, youtube, and google