Originally Posted by
Kimbo Almond
Amphibious lizards (such as the salamander) are born in water, and they have gills for breathing under water. When they're juveniles they remain in the water and continue to breathe under water using their gills. Into adulthood, they start to grow lungs and then they leave the water and live the rest of their life on land breathing with their lungs.
The axolotol is strange though, because it is born in water, lives as a juvenile in water, and then matures into an adult without ever developing lungs, it just stays in the water all its life.
But here's where it gets really cool. . .
The genome of the axolotl is very long, it's even longer than the human genome. Maybe it's so long because there's information in it for regrowing amputated limbs. Another reason might be that there are parts of it that have been temporarily disabled or deactivated. The axolotl must have had an ancestor 50,000 years ago that developed lungs and walked on land, because it's possible to get an axolotl to grow lungs and become a terrestial lizard by administering a hormone to it.
So I'm gonna get a tank and keep four axolotls in it. Every month I'll buy one more axolotl and give it the hormone, so there will be five in the tank. This fifth axolotl might die if the metamorphisis doesn't go right. I'll have to try this experiment once a month until it works. Might take me a couple of years. Or it might work first time.