Speaking of freaks....

... I have an axolotl with an extra leg.

All along I thought I saw something odd with one of the axos, but every time I tried to pin it down (with my eyes) the little guy would swim off and get mixed up with the others.

TODAY I nailed it. He has an extra leg growing out of the shoulder of his right front leg.

LOL! Gave my poor hubby the heebie jeebies.

How often does this happen?

Is it genetic?

I suppose irregardless, I should weed him out of the gene pool....

Sharon

hah! dont you dare!!! i'll take him -we freaks have to stick together . actually extra limbs and tails are not too uncommon (and digits too) these often are not genetically based -they result from damage to a limb/tail and though not completely gone the body decides to grow another. the 'programming' for regrowth is not a precise procedure-so often a newt that looses a foot with 5 toes may grow back another with 9 -some sprouting from each other (i have a kweichow like this now that has 1 toe growing from another). i am suspecting it may have gotten a bite from another sibling that didnt result in full removal of the limb.

If you want him, he is yours!

I didn't mean I'd euthanize him!!! LOL! But I would have separated him in a couple of months.

I like the "body confusion" idea. I'll try and get a good pic of it for you, my cameras' macro mode isn't behaving itself though, so I'll see what turns out.

Hey now I have something you want! Its still kinda of hot to ship though... Monsoons should be hitting us soon.....

Sharon

Hey,

My eldest lad has an extra toe on one foot...could be from the dam's side of the pedigree. Perhaps I should show him your posts and suggest euthanasia. Problem is he probably thinks it's a country next to bulgaria...lol

regards, Mik

LMAO! Mik you are funny!

Naw I can't ever let go of anything "easily." Geeze, I even paid to have a hamsters' broken leg splinted. It paid off, ornery devil lived several years to bite my damn finger during every feeding and bedding change. (As far as I know he is still living as a "stud" hamster, rotfl)

So euthanasia is out. The limb works, both of them. I'm sure I've seen the bottom limb moving its toe and flexing its foot. For a fact the top limb works, foot flexes etc.

Oddly enough he seems to swim better than the others. There is a huge amount of webbing between the upper and lower limb, pretty cool.

I was ::: ahem ::: using that room and was at eye level with him yesterday, he was floating and facing me dead on, I got an amazing look at the limbs. PERFECT, except that there are two.

Did I mention he is a melanoid? Gorgeous velvety black! Now I'm annoyed. I know its most likely because of an accident but he is just going to have to become someones pet.

Sharon

Sounds really cool. did you know there is a piccy of an axie with two legs from same shoulder joint on the yahoo group site? Albino I think.

Aren't Melanoids the coolest of Axos.

I love all mine. i love the way the wildtypes seem to change colour in the light and i consider them the basic model.
I think golden albino's are my least favourite but I do like v white albinos vmuch.
My Leucistics are great to watch very active and the most freakish looking. Tweak keeps me amused for hours blundering around the tank and winding up all the others.

But the melanoids are just so cool. Definately the sports coupe model.

Would love to see a melanoid with red gills. But not sure if it's possible. I also like the huge black feathery gills on Psylocke they never grow or shrink.
Maybe when they finally breed I should try and keep only those with larger gills and see if I can breed a strain with huge gills. I reckon it should only take a few generations to see some kind of consistency in type.
Left you some name ideas at yahoo.

TC mikki

I thort that that only happend when its leg was bitten off and they acedently grow anotherone aswhell