Photo: Chimaera axolotls

[Morrison]

How rare are they? I would like to know more about it. So does anyone have them, know anything about them or anything else you want to share about them (pics etc)? I can't really find MUCH about them...

(And if someone sells them.... that would be nice)

Anyway. For them who don't know what they are (sorry if the pictures are too big):

 

[Bellabelloo]

Have a look at this thread :-

http://www.caudata.org/forum/f46-be...802-very-strange-axolotl-color-metamorph.html

 

[Morrison]

Ha thanks. Interesting axies

 

[zoezakella]

cool coloured axie :happy:

 

[Kaysie]

I've seen Pirate the moldy cheese axie in person. She looks way more awesome, but still a bit like moldy cheese.

 

[Xoxo]

Firt, sorry for my english ! But i'm going to try helping you with my informations...

This is not a color but a hybrid concept. The axolotl is not possessing the same genetic code all over his body. Visually a chimaera can show two different colors, one right and one left, and only then we can recognize her.
To be noticed a chimaera is, for example, half albino / half savage, or half leucistic / half wild.
Once adult, the colors can migrate slightly to mix, however the differentiation is often possible on the head. A chymère is a rare accident of nature. It isn't genetically transmitted during reproduction.

Cause and natural hazards causing chimaera "in vivo":
1. Just after fertilization, twin zygotes are formed in the same egg (^we can estimate a 1% chance)
2. It is necessary that the twins migrate against each other in a very primitive stage of development (we can estimate a 1% chance)
3. We need the zygotes to form one with the genes of each (at that stage, the embryo is just a cell's group!)
4. It is necessary that this "graft" is accepted, with the axolotl we can estimated succeed in 100% of cases.
4. We need the development of the embryo to continues normally, without stopping. (estimate 90%)
5. Let the axolotl "half-half" born and grow (as a percentage variable between spawning and rearing conditions, incalculable)

The chances of having a chimaera be about minimum 1 per hundred thousand (1 / 100,000), if we make a rough calculation. (not exactly)

The great capacity of regeneration of the axolotl, and its very good acceptance of transplants are probably something in the fact that there is a little more in the axolotl chymères that elsewhere.

 

[lstrohl]

I've seen such estimates of probability before, but suspect the probability of chimaerism in axolotls is much higher than 1/100 000.

In a recent batch of 325 I found two left/right chimaeras, both with leucistic right halves and wild-type left halves. One has the GFP gene on the left, as well. They are about a month old.

I think I just found two more in a more recent hatch of abot 200, but I'm not certain of their characteristics, yet, since they are too young to clearly identify. One of these appears to be GFP on the left and normal albino on the right. Of course, you can only see this with a UV light - and he doesn't like it.

I suspect that the rarity of axy chimearas has been overestimated due to (1) the relative weakness of chimaeras compared to normal animals, and (2) the fact that most people select only a few, "healthy-looking" eggs to hatch from the hundreds produced. I have noticed that at least some chimaeric eggs are unusually large, and may be discarded due to their unusual appearance, and (3) most chimaeras are probably produced from two very similar zygotes, resulting in an individual that is hard to distinguish from a monozygotic, normal individual without careful examination.