Is it hard to morph axolotls?

im thinking of doing it nut i would probably not but is it hard and what changes to axis are there like what they eat and all that...


*Michael, could you please use capital letters and punctuation in your posts.

It is a horrible thing to put an axolotl through, so much pain and discomfort and it lowers the life span of them too. Its a horrible horrible thing.

how does it hurt them?

Because they have to be exposed to chemicals and or bad husbandry conditions. Axoltols aren't meant to morph! Very rarely will you get one to morph without influencing it one way or another.

Just get a tigrinum/mavortium. Looks just like a morphed axolotl!

We can't get them here, just be happy with your axies the way they are, its cruel to morph them.

Sorry, didn't look at the nationality. Even if you succeeded in morphing your axolotl, you would end up with an inactive salamander which will last only a couple of months. Doesn't make sense.

Morphing is a last resort survival tactic - - it means that they are literally dying under your care and struggling to find a way to live. Most die during the morphing process.

Why would you want to purposely do that?

The trauma of such a forced morph leaves you with an animal that is unhealthy, has suffered greatly, and will die much earlier in life then if kept properly as an axolotl.

This is not meant to be sarcastic or lairy, but in no way should you be thinking/doing any science experiments with your own axi to produce a morphed type which will be very poorly and have a **** life.

There are so many other salamanders that look like morphed axolotls, so if it is the look you are going for buy another pet dont ruin an already beautiful axolotl!

I dont know what you are looking for in doing this, if it is for an experiment so you can see it morphing or if it would be to get a changed look in the axolotl ? Either way your wasting time in doing it as it will die, and its not nice to do it.

I think it is important that people who ask about morphing axolotls are properly informed and not told that it is awful/cruel/ horrible/wrong without detailing why.

Many axolotls have been subjected over the years to attempts to morph them and many of these attempts have been cruel. However a lot has been learned from properly conducted published works.

If appropriate doses of thyroid hormone are given in an appropriate way to a young axolotl about the size a tiger salmander would normally morph they morph into a creature which is robust and usually lives as long as a tiger salamander.

They do not often morph in bad water conditions and attempts to morph them by warming, lowering the water or using iodine are cruel and ineffective.

Hormone treatment applied too early results in tiny salamanders which do not feed well and treatment of sexually mature axolotls results in morphs which seem to drop dead very quickly, so there is some truth in the story it shortens their life.

With regard to the ethics of creating a morphed salamander I see it as less evil than taking a wild bred tiger salamander from a breeding population and shipping it halfway round the world (I believe all the tigers available to me in the UK are of such a type).

The hormones used to produce morphing are not readily available without prescription in most countries. There is someone who appears to be suppying well artificially morphed axolotls into the Australian market.

I have artificially morphed one of my axolotls. It is a healthy creature, now three years old and interesting and different in a big way from my other axies. Early in the morphing proces it ate like mad, then ate nothing for eight weeks before settling down into an easy to care for healthy salamander. It burrows in soil but still also likes to sit below the surface in a shallow bowl of water.

Done right morphing is not cruel, they should not die in the process and they should live years. Despite that my advice is unless you know what you are doing- don't. If your axolotl is already adult I believe that attempting to morph it is cruel and justifies reporting as such to the animal welfare organisations such as (in the UK) the RSPCA.

Also this issue has been discussed before as a simple search will show.

Axolotls are not meant to morph its as simple as that.
If they were meant to morph they would do it all on their own, without any introduction of hormones or chemicals.

Think of it this way...................how would you like someone exposing you to chemicals and leaving you in horrible conditions to try to turn you into a cat?

Sounds ridiculous doesnt it?

haha, well they dont change into another speices per sey ... its more like someone exposing you to chemicals and leaving you in horrible conditions to try to make parts of your body fall off and change the function of you internal and external organs

I was going for shock factor

As I understand it, exposure to thyroxine will transform an axolotl, to the terrestrial form, however in most of the axolotl lines, the transformed animal will die. The reason that death occurs is because the animal isn't producing enough thyroxine to maintain the system of the animal such as skin shedding and renewal.
I'm not sure why the line of axolotls in Australia that are being transformed survive past several months but we do know that some lines were crossed with tiger salamander (A. tigrinum) and that maybe why once they are transformed they do well.

Some comments,

Ed

It is my understanding that metamorphosis in tiger salamanders is mediated by a surge in thyroxine which post metamorphosis falls back to very low, usually undetectable levels.

Done right you get healthy and robust terrestrial axolotls. I am reluctant to post a link to the scientific papers because I believe that terrestrial axolotls are harder to keep than the aquatic form and a long term commitment: It is precicely because they are aqutic that they are the easiest amphibian to keep!

Many of the posters in this thread are talking horrible conditions, pain and discomfort. There is no need for any horrible conditions, which do not usually work anyway and I do not see metamorphosis as a painful condition in other amphibians.

It is not a matter of the axolotl lines, it is a matter of appropriate timing and dosage.

My morphed axolotl sheds its skin regularly, it has not had any thyroxine in the last couple of years.

On a slightly different note if you want to see what we humans would change into if we lost our neotenic features try reading "After Many a Summer" by Aldous Huxley.

It is well documented that Ambystoma tigrinum has been crossed into axololt lines at least once and it is reasonable to assume that descendents of those hybrids have been crossed through multiple lineages. There is speculation that lines that still contain those genes can have a different rate of success in metamorphosis.
There is also indications that there may some changes in the genetics of different lines of axolotls with some of the older lines losing some of those traits due to genetic drift.

This is actually an interesting article that touches on the topic. http://www.eve.ucdavis.edu/shafferlab/pubs/VossMolEcol2000.pdf

Ed