5 ms·
The axolotl has nearly disappeared from its natural habitat
- karmakaze 9y agoIs this the inspiration for the "how to train a dragon" character? The resemblance is uncanny.
- eat_veggies 9y agoThe Pokémon Mudkip was also inspired by the axolotl!
- refrigerator 9y agoI always assumed it was based on the Mudskipper (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudskipper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudskipper) but can see a bit of both in Mudkip :)
- waivek 9y agoIt looks a lot more like the Pokémon wooper.
- ivm 9y ago"How to Train Your Dragon" was directed by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois who were directors and character designers of "Lilo & Stitch". So Toothless was inspired by Stitch and, probably, cats.
- reassembled 9y agoIs there a reason they can't release them into a new habitat somewhere, even constructed specifically for the Axolotl? Also if they are so prolifically inbred in captivity, couldn't they capture another specimen and start a new line either with a captive specimen or another wild specimen?
- anigbrowl 9y agoPresumably they don't want to wreck the ecosystem of other species. I mean you can't exactly order up an empty habitat on Amazon, though I'm sure Alexa is now working furiously on the concept in case any of the Axiolotls have money.
- crispinb 9y agoWe're losing so much of our planet's biota, and at such a catastrophic pace (eg 58% decline in vertebrate abundance since 1970), that it's hard to know where to concentrate resources. This is an ongoing debate amongst ecologists. There's a fundamental quandary: the problem is planetary, a specieswise response is known to be inadequate, but it's the only one on offer.
- meri_dian 9y agoThe answer is to allow evolution to do its job and produce species capable of dealing with human dominance of the planet, while at the same time doing our best to transition to sustainable energy sources.
- GlennS 9y agoEvolution (mostly) works too slowly to keep up with human technological change.
- ekianjo 9y agoThat's not how evolution works at all. Evolution is not about mutations and genetic changes, it's about who is the fittest for their current environment. It can happen, very, very fast, like when new species are introduced in an environment. This can be observed in Australia with several species that were imported with human interactions. That counts as Evolution as well.
- agumonkey 9y agoAren't you distorting the concept ? if no axolotl is fit to survive in the current wild, then that's it, no more axolotl. Evolution is not only filtering but also adapting, and it takes reproduction to do whatever (be it gene shuffling or else) to improve fitness.
- brndnmtthws 9y agoAxolotls are fascinating animals. Here's an interesting YouTube video all about them: https://youtu.be/Eo50ctoOTWs https://youtu.be/Eo50ctoOTWs
- diggernet 9y ago> The axolotl is on the brink of annihilation in the canals of Mexico City, its only natural habitat. Their only natural habitat is city canals?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- crazygringo 9y ago"The species originates from numerous lakes, such as Lake Xochimilco underlying Mexico City... As of 2010, wild axolotls were near extinction due to urbanization in Mexico City and consequent water pollution, as well as the introduction of invasive species such as tilapia and perch... Surveys in 1998, 2003 and 2008 found 6,000, 1,000 and 100 axolotls per square kilometer in its Lake Xochimilco habitat, respectively. A four-month-long search in 2013, however, turned up no surviving individuals in the wild. Just a month later, two wild ones were spotted in a network of canals leading from Xochimilco." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axolotl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axolotl
- tripletmass 9y agoSmall cities too. Floodplain management is the farmer, so from 2010: 10.3368/er.28.3.257 (so, _Ecological Restoration_) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240812159_Creating_Refuges_for_the_Axolotl_Ambystoma_mexicanum https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240812159_Creating_... No idea how long the eggs can aestivate. Nice genetics/biocaching crossover there. I hoped to see a nationload (MX, BR, something) of LEED living roof that included or adjoined estuary, I guess we know the jaguar (ocelot...) is less a hazard. It just has to be nicer to keep occupied canopy over most of the estuary (so birds don't run off with the cache in minutes) than it is to run ventilation or spend marginal time (¨) on cash crops. http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/hope-for-the-axolotl http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/hope-for-the-axolotl is nice. Maybe every kid needs a little Nausicä dungeon, bugs and all.
- kevmo 9y agoBats are another noticeable species that is dying out. The earth is currently undergoing its sixth mass extinction event. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
- QAPereo 9y agoBats are major pollinators... we are so cooked.
- userbinator 9y agoBut although there might be just a few hundred individuals left in the wild, tens of thousands can be found in home aquariums and research laboratories around the world. They are bred so widely in captivity that certain restaurants in Japan even serve them up deep-fried. Doesn't that mean it's not actually extinction, but more like domestication?
- azernik 9y agoThere are worries about those in captivity, though: > By the time that day comes, however, the wild axolotl may be gone. That worries Gardiner and Sandoval Guzmán because the animals that they study, like many lab animals, are highly inbred. Scientists use an ‘inbreeding coefficient’ to measure how small a gene pool is. Identical twins have a coefficient of 100%; totally unrelated individuals would score close to zero. A score above 12% indicates a population in which individuals are mostly breeding with their first cousins, and is considered a serious concern by ecologists and geneticists. The famously inbred and unhealthy Spanish Habsburg kings of the seventeenth century often had a coefficient somewhere above 20%. The average axolotl inbreeding coefficient is 35%.
- vanderZwan 9y agoThere may be high numbers in captivity, but those will be genetically very similar. You may be interested in learning more about genetic drift and effective population size, it should clear things up: https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/Genetic-Drift-and-Effective-Population-Size-772523 https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/Genetic-Drift-and-...
- contingo 9y agoIt just means they're headed for extinction in the wild, but that some populations are maintained in captivity. The term 'domestication' would not normally be used in this case, because it relates to the selection of improvement traits in some resource or behavior useful to humans.
- KineticLensman 9y agoThe article makes the point that the problem isn't that there are very few axolotls left, but that the non-wild ones are very inbred. This makes them prone to mass die-off from disease. They also accumulate genetic abnormalities that make them less useful to scientific research - notably into limb development and regeneration.
- jabretti 9y agoInfowars.com is known for two key claims. Firstly, that Bill Clinton is a rapist, and secondly that the chemicals they're putting in the water are turning the frogs gay. The former is looking increasingly plausible these days, and I'm starting to wonder about the second.
- topmonk 9y agoChemicals refers estrogen from birth control pills. It's a valid argument.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- agumonkey 9y agoRandom thought, if we ate axolotl limbs, we could stop killing animals