September 12, 2023 • 48 mins
It’s a listener request! Axolotls are one of the more amazing animals roaming the planet right now – they can regenerate parts of their brains, can fight off tumors, are found in the wild only in one single lake? And did we mention they smile all the time?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
shock in Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you
should know, part of the ongoing, never ending, stupendously outstanding
animal editions.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
That's right. And for us Friday morning edition, which never happens,
we had a little family issue yesterday and you guys
were very sweet and kind and sure agreed to punt
to the recording a day, and so now we are.
We're in our morning show routine.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
That's right. I can't even begin to do a morning
show host impression. I'd like to, but I can't bring myself.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
To who likes lizards?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
That was pretty good, Chuck, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
And that's probably a morning show person. We would probably
call this a lizard.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, yeah, good point, because they're not lizards. They're amphibians.
And what we're talking about are called ACXE Lottle's. And
before we get into it, I think we should give
a hat tip to a guest researcher who helped us
with the very initial research on axeltos, a listener named
Charlie's Flores, who, by the way, her grandma calls her Chuck,
(01:22):
she mentioned.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Ah, that's very sweet. Did she send us a sweet
letter in a picture that she drew?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yes, a picture of her Axe Lottle Boba, And she
told us some pretty amazing initial things about Axe Lottle's
and she and her mom, Gabrielle listen out in Omaha.
So thank you very much to Charlie's for helping us
out with this one. I guess we should also thank
Dave Ruths too.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Yeah, of course, but Dave's not what like six years old?
How old is Chuck?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
She's ten going into she just started the fifth grade.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Oh well, I feel like a dummy too. And I'm
a dad of an eight year old, and I guess
too young. You never know, You never know. You just
can't tell at that age. You're like, are you three?
Are you fifteen? I can't see?
Speaker 4 (02:09):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
So should we talk pronunciation real quick? Because I, because
of my screwy day yesterday, I meant a thousand times
to go look up sort of the indigenous pronunciation of
what we call axe Lottele, and I failed to. But
you were schooling me before we started recording schooling in
a good way.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I got you covered. Yeah, So that very strange looking
word is actually taken directly from the naw What language,
which is the language of the Aztec people, and they
came up with this. We'll talk. Do you want to
just go ahead and talk about that part now?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Sure, okay, good. So the the word axe a lottle,
what we call acx a lotto, is actually as showlut,
even though it's spelled the exact same way in the
knaw What language, Atl is pronounced lut and x is
very often pronounced show. It can also be pronounced waw.
(03:07):
It's kind of all over the place. It's like a
utility baseball player. It can do whatever.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Wow, look at you.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
And by the way, also the Aztecs were called the mischika,
and that x is a she in that case. So
the ax a lottel or a show lut is named
after the Aztec god show lut xolotl.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
That's right, the god of fire and lightning.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Correct, also what else?
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Also the god of physical deformities and dogs and death.
And I'm glad we're starting here because this sort of
reinforces why the ax a lottle, by the way, which
is a very very cute little salamander amphibian. I think
you did say amphibian, But if you think you haven't
seen one, you probably have because of blown up the
(04:00):
internet semi recently with their cute smiles. But they're very
important to the lore and the culture of Mexico because
of the Aztec origins and specifically this god show Lut, who,
like we said, physical deformities, fire, lightning, death, and dogs.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Right, and so according to lore, Sholt was escaping Ketsukotl,
which is Sholt's twin god sibling, and to escape he
transformed into three things. May's plant, which is show lut
in nowa language agave which is mesh mess show Lut,
(04:46):
and then a salamander alt and he still was caught
and killed. But I believe by transforming into those things
he made them exist per chance. So the reason that
the Asshola is kind of like a big deal in
as tech culture is that they were very hyper local
(05:11):
to the as tech people. They were where the as
tech were, and they were a huge food source, a
source of medicine, and also I guarantee a source of
amusement and delight because I don't care what era or
age or epoc you're living in. Yeah, Acxi Lotte's are
one of the cutest animals on the planet.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
They really are. I mean, there's something about that perma
smile that is undeniably cute and affectionate looking. And I
know this is humans putting their stuff on animals, but
you know, the thing smiles. What else can you say?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
You can't there's nothing I need to say. But that's
the thing about Acxi Lottle's Chuck is, yes, if they
were just that cute and it stopped there, they'd still
be worth talking about. But they're really really worth talking about.
And this what Charlie's Flores was trying to explain to
us is that there's so many other amazing, astounding things
(06:07):
about Axel Lotteles that this is just one of the
most interesting animals on the planet.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
It turns out, here's your Disney movie. It's centered around
I'm surprised you haven't done this quite frankly, it's centered
around and Axel Lottle.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Of course, na Axel.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
But sure, yeah, exactly perfect, thank you, and it is,
but it is. And you know, Disney movies always sort
of and you know Pixar all that stuff, they always
sort of have their larger point to make about emotions
or this or that. Maybe this one deals with mental
illness and you have an axe a lottle that is
actually depressed but smiles all the time anyway, and his
(06:46):
little buddies have to help him out and see him
through this.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, and like the climax of the film is where
he've manages to frown, right.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Maybe, so that's pretty great, chuck. Yeah, just to put
a sort of cherry on top of the original cultural story.
Though when the Spanish came around as conquerors, they were like,
oh man, this stuff is delicious. It was. They tried
to they tried to keep a lot of records at
least of what was going on with the Aztec and
(07:16):
like what was important to them culturally. I'm not going
to say like so they could respect them or anything
like that, but they did keep records, and they did
learn about the axe lottle and learn that it was
a source of medicine, and they called it the food
of the lords, and there was there were festivals. It
was this. I mean, I don't want to eat one
(07:36):
of these things. But they had Tamali axe lottle, Tomaly's
and I like it. Tomali. So That's the only time
I was like, hmmm, I.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Could eat one of those if you wrapped it up
into tamali.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Yeah, but I really couldn't because all I could see
is that smile in my brain.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
So axe Lottle's are that would be tough to do,
especially if the head's poking out the end of the
tamali just looking.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Oh man, no, you can't.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
So I said. Axi Lottel's were hyper local to where
the Mishika, the ASTech lived, uh. And they lived in
uh like, basically on a lake. Like Mexico City used
to be an az tech capital called tenock Teetlan, and
tenak Teetlan was built basically on top of lake Uh.
(08:21):
What is it Toshoko?
Speaker 3 (08:23):
I think probably Teshcoco.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Toshcoco, thank you.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
So.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Lake Toushcoco is where the the ax Lotto hails from.
And it's again it's a salamander, and there are other
salamanders that live in that area. But the axe Lotto
only lived in the Lake Toshcoco area. And and as
the Spanish came along and said, you can't build a
(08:47):
city on a lake, what are you crazy, We're gonna
go ahead and drain this lake. One of the remnants
of that lake was an even smaller body of water.
And it's not only a smaller body of water, it's
it's even harder to pronounce than Lake Teshcoco.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
It really is.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
It's Lake Sochi Milko and friends. Look up Sochi Mealko.
It is not, in any way, shape or form, as
far as an English speaker is concerned, spelled like gets pronounced. Yeah,
it's XO c Chi m I Lco. But Lake Sochi
Mealko is a very small body of water. It's basically
a small system of freshwater canals that are the remnants
(09:27):
of Lake Teshcoco. And that is where x a Lotto's live.
Now in the entire world, there's nowhere else, even in Mexico.
There's nowhere else you will find an ax Lottel in
the wild except for in Lake Sochi Milko.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Yeah, and I'm actually going to Mexico City for the
first time in November.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
It's a very cool town.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
I can't wait. Man, And uh, I'm not going to
go on an ax A Lottle tour. I don't know
if they have those. I bet they do. They do,
but they're they're generally not out during the day. But
we'll get to all this stuff as we go, right,
Should we start at the beginning?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yeah, I thought we had started well.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Historically the beginning, I just mean the beginning of axe
lottels as a species, because they are amphibians, like you said,
of the order Urudella, and that is all salamanders. The
scientific name is Ambistoma mexicanum, which very appropriate. I even
know what that means. Ambostoma means blunt mouth, and when
(10:24):
you see to axi lottle, it kind of has a
blunt looking mouth, so it all makes sense. And in Latin,
amphibia for amphibia means double life, and it's called double
life and amphibia because, as we all know, amphibians start
out in water when they're hatched as little eggs, and
they spend some time there as young and swimming around
and using their gills, and then eventually they metamorphosize and
(10:47):
transform into a land creature, which means they grow legs,
their little tails shrink, and they learn to use their
lungs and those gills aren't useful anymore, and sometimes they
even go all right.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yes, that's a that's a typical amphibian. That's just what
they do. Yeah, the gills go away, they start breathing
with their lungs and they live on land. They go
from living in the water living in the land. It's
what makes an amphibian of an amphibian, except except with
axe lottels and a couple other there's a couple other
species of amphibians, mud puppies, I think, is one that
(11:24):
they never leave the water. They're amphibians, but they don't
amphibiate essentially. Yeah, and it's it's something called naotiny, which
is they stay forever young, just like that Rod Stewart's song. Yeah,
and another word for it is pedamorphic, and like Rod Stewart,
yeah exactly. Although no, no, that's not true at all.
(11:47):
But that means that they even in their adult form,
even in like they're fully grown up, they can reproduce,
they're drawing social security, they still are not only look
like their childhood form for all intentsive purposes, their body
inside and out is still in the childhood form.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Yeah, they don't drop that tail like other sallyes do.
They keep that tails called a body fin because it
kind of you know, once you see it, it kind of
looks like it runs up their body. Yeah, they keep
those well, they keep those legs. Their legs wouldn't go
way anyway, but they have those stubby little legs. They
do have lungs, and they also still have those gills,
which we'll talk about a little more in a second,
(12:29):
but they basically breathe almost exclusively through their gills and
they also never use their legs to walk on dry land.
So you know, there's a term in Mexico, Mexican walking
fish is what they can be called, which Day very
funnily points out, like they are Mexican, but they're not
fish and they don't walk, so it's a bit of
(12:49):
a misnomer.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, just a touch. There's a theory as to why
this is going on, like why would this happen? This
doesn't really make any sense.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Like why would they have legs?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Yeah, exactly, that's a great question. And some one of
the theories is that there was a point in time
where they did amphibiate fully and make it out of
the water, so they needed their legs, they needed their lungs.
They do have little tiny lungs, but they're very undeveloped,
so they can't they can survive out of water for
a very short time with those little tiny lungs, but
(13:23):
not for very long. They're clearly not designed to stay
out of water. So the idea is that somewhere in
their evolutionary history they spent some time on land. But
the place where they lived, either like Tushcoco or Lake
Sochi Milko, was so such a great environment for them,
(13:43):
so ripe, with food so abundant. No, what's the opposite
of abundant, Oh, scarce? So there was such scarce predators.
It was just a perfect place to live man, a
golden age to be an Axi lotto, I would say.
And so they stayed in the water, and at some
(14:04):
point in time those genes got frozen in some individual organisms,
and those got passed along, and those gave us Axi
lottos and chuck also, may, I retort to myself. Sure,
So that is one theory. My theory which I would
like to share is wow, Axi lottles are only about
(14:25):
ten thousand years old as a species. Okay, they basically
evolve from other salamanders that they live among, and they
haven't fully I believe, evolved into it an entirely separate species.
They can still procreate with other salamanders, and so I
(14:46):
think what it is, it's a remnant of the salamanders
that they evolved from. That they haven't fully evolved out
of that, and that if you looked at Axi lottles,
you know, one hundred thousand years from now, they won't
have any legs anymore.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
And this is, uh, does anyone is this out there
at all? Is this all you?
Speaker 2 (15:07):
I'm putting it out there, baby?
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Okay? So they used to mate with their other salamander friends.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
And they still can. Like Rod Stewart, that's right, that's right,
he's had one or two salamanders in this time.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
All right, I like it. That makes sense to me.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
In one hundred thousand years, we'll know for sure, right right. Yeah,
once the earth is a big flaming ball of hot gas.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Oh yeah, it'll have come and gone by then.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
All right, So maybe we should take a break. I
think that's a good setup and we talk about how
remarkable this thing is. Just hold on to your hats, everybody,
because this sort of blew my mind and it will
blow yours as well. Right after this, soft jaws.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Want to learn about terrors or color sord Actol, how
to take a perfect boom?
Speaker 4 (16:02):
All about fractalink is con that's a little hunt the
Lizzie Borderers A.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Word up, Jerry.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
All right, So, uh, if you haven't looked up a
picture of an axe lottle, by now, pull your car
off or take a break from jogging or cleaning your
house or whatever you do when you listen to us.
Wake up. Maybe if you're sleeping, look up a picture
of that cute little thing. You've probably seen them on
TikTok or YouTube. Uh, you've probably seen a bunch of
very colorful axe lottles. And those are bread specifically to
(16:38):
sell as pets in those amazing colors. That is not
what color they are in the wild. They are dark brownish,
sort of greenish or really really black. And kids don't
want that. Kids want a hot, pink one, and so
humans have made that possible, right.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
They want the Barbie version of ax lottles, the Barbie edition.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
We all do we want what Barbie versions of everything,
don't we?
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah? For sure? So there's pink and the pink can
it's usually pretty pale, but I would say their faces
can be kind of hot pink. Yeah, white ones pale
yellow lavender. That's my favorite model, green gray. And they
also have glow in the dark ones, which are a
little bit misname because it's not glow in the dark.
(17:24):
They glow under UV lights because they have the same
genes that jellyfish. Some jellyfish do and they were bred
into them. This is not a natural thing, although apparently
they can spontaneously generate that gene in the wild weirdly enough.
But the upshot of it is if you have a
glow in the dark axilotel and you're showing it off
(17:45):
with the black light how it glows, you actually don't
want to do that very much because you're blasting them
with UV radiation and their skin is so delicate. It's
actually really bad for them.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Yeah, and if you're a teenage boy and your mom's
in the room, you don't want to do that anyway.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Right, What do you mean I'm not catching that one?
Speaker 3 (18:04):
That's right. Adults will understands. Moving on, They are about
ten inches long, or they can grow up to ten
inches long. They have those big, wide mouths that look
sort of unusually large for their size and for their head,
and they do have little teeth top and bottom, teeth
(18:26):
and their stubby little legs have four web toes on
the front and five on the rear. And we got
to talk about those gills, because the first thing you
might notice, aside from that winning smile when you look
at an Axi lotto, are those amazing feathery gills sticking
out from the head. They don't look like fish's gills
(18:47):
that you would see, just sort of, you know, just
like dumb old gills on the side of a fish head,
just opening back and forth like an air vent. These
things are, as Dave says, magnificent. There's no other to
describe these wispy, feathery, branched feathers.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
It almost looks like little pieces of coral coming off
of it. There's three, three pair on each side of
its head. Now there's a pair on each side of
its head, times three, right, Yeah, Okay, Chuck, no more
Friday morning recording sessions for me.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Okay, that was some tough mess.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
And they look like flowy and branched and philigreed because
they're essentially like our lungs. Our lungs have avoli, these
air sacs, and if you really look at a detail
of our lungs, they're branched in feathery and philigreed because
that expands the surface area for gas exchange. Same thing
with the axe lottel, except those are gills to them
(19:45):
because they do the oxygen exchange of the gas exchange
under water. And they're on their head.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah, and it's it looks like an adornment almost, you know,
or a hair do.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Like a Larry Fine hairdo from the Three Stooges.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Right, it's cuterer than that.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
I think Larry's hair was super cute.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Okay, As I mentioned earlier, I kind of teased about
an Axi lottle tour in Mexico City. I'm not sure
how they do those, but they are generally not around
during the day. They're pretty sedentary and they hide in
the mud. Nighttime is the right time for the Axi
lotte They come out and eat basically anything that they
can eat their carnivores, anything with a beating heart, whether
(20:29):
it's a worm or a mollusk, or even a crustacean
or a tiny fish, an Axi lotta will chow down
on them. And you mentioned earlier that they can even
though they never go through that metamorphosis that other amphibians
do in order to live a life on land and
do things like reproduce. They can reproduce. They are sexually
(20:50):
mature at six months old, and they're just it's called
the peter Pan state. They're sort of stuck in this
eternal childhood. But those children still want to have babies
and do that thing, you know.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yeah, So how do they do it?
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Well, like many animals, there's a little dancing ritual. It's
called the mating waltz where the male and the female
kind of swim very tightly together. They get their cloacas
and rub them against each other. Things are getting a
little steamy down there in the lake, and then the
male says, here you go, here's a big cone full
(21:26):
of sperm. And the female says, well, thank you very much.
I we'll use my cloaca to accept that be whip
and fertilize my eggs. And those eggs are a lot.
They are about three hundred to one thousand fertilized eggs.
What I wondered is how, I mean, I know, we'll
talk about why they're so endangered, but if they're laying
(21:46):
that many eggs, how many come to fruition? Because that's
a lot of eggs.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
I got you. I found on some message boards. I
don't even know if they call them that any longer,
but on the internet from people who raise acxilatos that
they're actually they a lot of them do, like more
than a than half. It was a news serve. Oh wow,
they they I saw somebody predict about eighty percent. Well hatch,
(22:10):
which is a big deal. If you have a female
and a male Acxi lotel in your tank, you really
have to keep an eye out for eggsacs floating around
because those you'll have a lot of acxi lottos on
your hands.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Yeah, and they if you get one as a pet,
and we'll talk about care a little bit at the end,
but be prepared to have that thing for a while
because in captivity they can live up to twenty five years.
In the wild about ten to fifteen. And if you
remember our we talked about the proteus alemander a long
time ago.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
In our biosbiology episode.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
That's right, that was a good creepy episode. Those things
can live to be one hundred so it's not unusual
for a sally to have a long life.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yeah, and like you said, in captivity up to twenty
five years, And I just want to make sure that
everybody who's buying Acxi lottos as pets these days knows that, like,
you're twenty five years, you're going to have graduated college
and had your first job and maybe even have a
kid while your axilout is still around. So keep that
in mind.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Well, in the Disney movie, maybe that's why the excel
suppress that might be a little too toy story that
the kid sort of doesn't care anymore, but hey, you
never know.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, and we couldn't do that they flushed him down
the toilet because that's like finding Nemo, right, Hmmm.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Is that how Nemo got back into the wild?
Speaker 2 (23:26):
I feel like that happened the summer at some point.
I could be making that up, though it.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Isn't drifted in and out of some of those, you.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Know, it's just sooned out.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Well, I mean a lot of those I really like.
But then you know, when you have a kid, you're
watching so many Sometimes you're working and you know you
know Nemo's down there, but you don't remember how he
got there. You know.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I liked finding Nemo overall, but okay, moment to moment,
I didn't like that movie very much.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
But the whole is greater than the sum of its tissue.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Party, yes, yeah, well put well, put all.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Right, all right, so we haven't blown your mind yet.
Everyone's like, all right, they don't metamor size not the
biggest deal in the world, guys. Here's where the mind
blowing stuff comes in. Overall, salamanders and newts can regrow stuff.
They can regenerate tissue. They can regrow a tail. We
all know that they can regrow a limb. That's fine,
(24:20):
and they come out usually okay. But the axe a
lodel can well you know what I should read, actually
what Stephanie Roy says. This is a researcher from the
University of Montreal.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Can you do your Stephanie Roy impression while you read it?
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Sure, here we go. You can cut the spinal cord,
she sounds a lot like me. You can cut the
spinal cord, crush it, remove a segment and it will regenerate.
You can cut the limbs at any level, the wrist,
the elbow, the upper arm. This all sounds very sadistic,
by the way, and it will regenerate and it's perfect.
There's nothing missing, there's no scarring on the skin. At
(24:57):
the side of amputation, every tissue is repla. They can
regenerate the same limb fifty sixty one hundred times parentheses.
Trust me, I've cut off a lot of legs of
exilotis in parentheses and every time perfect.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Yeah. And what's crazy is like this continues throughout their life.
Like they can do this when they're very young, they
can do it when they're very old. Apparently. The only
change is that it just takes longer the older they are.
But that that new leg, that that new tail, it's
as good as new every time, no matter how old
(25:34):
they are. And that's pretty mind blowing in and of itself.
It gets even crazier than that.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Chuck that's here.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
In addition to like extremities and limbs and tails and stuff,
they can do the same thing with organs. Yeah, and
like important organs too, like the heart and the brain
and their spinal cord. They can regrow it good as
new every time.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Yeah, it's really amazing. And if you think they should
study this stuff to see if humans, you know, could
potentially do something like this with a little help from
ax a lot of stuff, right, they are studying this
stuff because and they've already found some pretty good breakthroughs,
but Axi lottels are very very valuable to study. And
what they've learned so far as far as these limbs
(26:20):
go and other things, is you get that little limb
cut off or something, and the cells nearest to that
limb wound differentiate immediately, so that means it's sort of
like a stem cell. That means they can become any
type of cell kind of instantaneously, and they form a
little a little pile around these undifferentiated cells, and that's
(26:43):
called a blastema. Or then this helps you to visualize
it more, it's also called a regeneration bud. So it's
like a little plant butd or something. Basically, we scar
up like dummies. We form scar like cut off your
arm and you're going to start forming scar tissue. Axe
Lott's say no, no, no, we're going to grow that
thing back with this blastoma, and they do that. They
(27:06):
generate stem cells, bone cells, muscle nerves, whatever you need
to replicate perfectly whatever is now missing.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah, which is pretty amazing considering we have pretty much
the same genes we've figured out the Axi Lottel So
they sequenced an Axi Lottal genome in twenty eighteen. I
believe it's the largest genome ever sequenced because amazing, the
Axi Lottal's genome is second only to the Australian lungfish
(27:37):
in size and number of base pairs. Humans have three
billion base pairs. We're doing pretty good with three billion
base pairs is kind of to be expected. That's a lot.
Axi Lotte's have ten almost eleven times the number of
base pairs that humans do, thirty two billion base pairs
in their genome. And so after examining all this, scientists
(27:58):
said like, hey, we've got some of these genes. What's
different They think is that with axe lotels, those genes
are stuck in the on position. Either they never make
the hormone that would turn those genes off, or they
continue to produce the hormone that keeps those genes on
regardless the fact that those genes are turned on and
(28:18):
then makes them able to just regrow like brand new
every time throughout their life.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Yeah, it's really something else. There's another cool theory about
why this might be true evolutionarily speaking, and there are
scientists that think that maybe at one point in their
history when they were in that lake and they were landlocked,
and food may have been abundant at one time, but
maybe at one point there were too many Acxi lottels
(28:47):
and food wasn't as abundant, and so they may have
turned cannibalistic and said, hey, friend, no, we've been hanging
out a lot lately, but your rear leg is looking
pretty tasty to me, and so I'm just going to
bite that off and eat it if you don't mind.
And that happened so much that the axe A lottos
(29:08):
who thrived were the ones who could grow those limbs
back quicker and survive.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Yeah, which makes sense, not bad. I don't have a
rival theory for that one.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Ah.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Shoot, I could make one up real quick. No, I can't.
It's Friday morning. Maybe if it were a Thursday afternoon.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
But I know.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
So you might say, like, oh, that's cool. I want
to try this at home with my ax a lot
I'm going to cut off its right front leg and
half of its brain and see what happens. Please don't
don't because they do have pain receptors, so they can't
feel pain. Apparently they have a high threshold pain, but
they will still feel pain if you essentially torture them
(29:47):
for your own amusement. So don't do that to your
axe a lottle at home. And by the way, is
these aren't messages to Charlie's flooras because based on her
her preliminary research, she knows what she's doing. She's taking
good care of Boba totally.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Another amazing superpower that these little guys have is the
you know, not only can they grow back things and
grow back organs, but they can transplant organs perfectly, just
like they can grow things back. They don't have a
learned immune system like we do when you get and
we did an episode on organ transplant many years ago,
(30:22):
and as we all know, a lot of times, in fact,
about a third of the time, the human body will
reject the organ because we have a learned immune system
and we'll just say, no, this isn't, this isn't shouldn't
be on my body. Yeah, get this thing out of here.
But axe lottos don't have that, so you can transplant.
It's like one hundred percent non rejection rate for organ transplants.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Yeah, but I mean that's for axe lottel. Right, You
couldn't put like a pig heart in it or anything.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
I don't think they've tried, but probably you're right, I
would say.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
I don't know if we said it or not. But
the different kinds of like lab grown types and varieties
of ax lottols are called morphs. Did you say that.
So there's a type of morph called the firefly morph.
And when it's in the embryonic stage, they'll take if
it's a like a black or dark modeled Axi lottle,
they'll take a tail from a white axe lotto or
(31:15):
pink one, and vice versa, and they will transplant the
tail in the embryonic stage and the thing grows up
and it's like black with a white tail or white
with a black tail. I don't think it's very cool looking,
but I think some people do.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Yeah. Another superpower is that they are one thousand more
times resistant to cancer than other mammals. It's pretty amazing.
And again researchers are studying this because like, could the
cure for cancer potentially be in these cute little sallies
And you know, you never know. They have treated breast
(31:51):
cancer patients with Axi loottle egg serum and it halted
the growth of cancerous tumors. So you know, know.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Yeah, they looked into it and they think what happened
was that the axe Lottle juice reprogrammed the tumor suppressing
genes that had been turned off epigenetically went in and
turned it back on, and so the tumor fighting proteins
and hormones were able to fight that tumor and stop
it from growing. Wow. Yeah, Wow is right, And I
(32:23):
say that big wow calls for a message break. What
do you think? I agree, Stoff we Josh Soft.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
I want to learn about a terroristort in college Taradactyl,
how to take the berg bo all about rectalink is gone.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
That's a little hunt the Lizzie Borderers on the plane.
Everything should know.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Word up, Jerry, so Chuck. There's a big irony with ax.
Aside from the irony that they can reproduce even though
they're young and YadA YadA, they are critically endangered in
the wild because again there's one small, tiny body of
water in outside of Mexico City where they live, and
they live nowhere else in the wild, But there's countless
(33:20):
accil Lottels thriving and living in captivity. Because it was
very clear early on in the mid nineteenth century to
at least some French physicians that they would make great
lab animals to experiment and test on. And so they
took some sample Acxi lottels to France and from that
(33:40):
point on they just kept breeding them and breeding them
and breeding them. Another world has tons of Acxi lottels,
they're just not around in the wild much.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Yeah, big time. You know, we talked about the habitat loss.
There's also a pollution problem. Also, the government introduce carp
i believe in Tilapia into where the axilottos were into
that lake and you know it for a food source
basically for fishermen, but they eat the plants where the
(34:11):
axil lottles like eggs. So that was a problem. And
here's some numbers for you. In nineteen ninety eight there
were about six thousand Axi lottles per square kilometer and
that is down to thirty five three five per square
kilometer today, which is very dead.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, and again critically endangered. And one of the reasons
why there's so many in captivity. I was saying is
that they do make a great lab animal. Apparently they're
experimented on second or third only to rats and mice. Wow, yeah,
that's surprising. That must be as far as vertebrates go.
(34:49):
But they that's where the pink Axi lottels come from
and all the other specimens. Apparently there were there was
what are called lucistic axi lottels. They're almost oh buy
I no, not quite, but they were in that group
of thirty four X lottels that were first taken into Paris.
And so every pink axe lotte is descended from those.
I think there are like six original ones. But the
(35:12):
reason that they work so well in labs is that
they have some really interesting traits.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
Yeah, they are very easy to breed in captivity. They
are easy to keep alive.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
If you know what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Check sure, because we said, you know, they live a
long time. Apparently they have very big cells and they're
easy to look at and easy to examine. And I
think the eggs are thirty times larger than a.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Human, roughly the size of a beach ball.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
They're embryonic neurons are six hundred times larger.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
What's that it's the size of the Grand Canyon.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Okay in big max. Sorry, right, And you know they're
they're just ideal model organisms for the lab, and so
that's why, and you know, because of their superpower, that's
why they are studied a lot.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Yeah, so we found a few things from them already.
We've figured out how organs develop invertebrates, including us, because,
like I said, we realized when we scan their genome
that we have a lot of the same genes. We
use those genes to grow limbs ourselves and lose our
tails ourselves while we're in utero, but after we're born,
probably right before we're born, those genes get turned off.
(36:25):
So we've figured out, thanks to the Axil Lottel how
those genes work and which ones are important. We figured
out how spina bifido works and where it comes from.
And thyroid hormones you wanted those isolated Axi Lotte's got
you covered.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Yeah, it's pretty amazing. If you're in did you already
say that the fact that they're growing like tons and
tons of these in a lab doesn't mean you can
just throw them back in a lake because they have
a shortage.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
There, right, I did not say that.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Well, I just said it because that's what I was
thinking this whole time. I was researching. It was well,
why then, since they are critically endangered, can't you just
release you know, tens of thousands of these But it
just doesn't work that way. These morphs are bred for
the lab, they're not bread for that lake, and it
apparently just doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
It'd be like moving your city cousin in with your
country cousin. Like you might have a decent sitcom on
your hands, but it's only going to last a season
or two, that's right.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
It all falls apart on Super Tuesdays exactly.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
So yeah, they can't do that. That's not to say
that they won't find a place where they could introduce
them to the wild. It's just apparently taking them back
to where they're from or where they originated is not
on the table.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
Yeah. And if you're wondering, well, what are they doing,
they are trying because the axe lotel is such a
culturally important thing, scientifically important animal. It is a flagship
species that they designated i think semi recently, which which
helps obviously protect it. They are now building sheltered areas
(38:06):
that don't have those grass eating tilapia. They're blocking them
out so they can lay those eggs safely. Where they
had for you know, eons. Actually, how long is an eon?
I probably misuse that. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Let's say, I'm sure I'll get any pretty long time, Okay,
pretty long time.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
The tour guides and the locals have all been you know,
educated and trained on best practices for like fishing and
doing those tours, and you know, hopefully all that stuff
makes a difference and really sinks in because it is
a beloved cultural creature.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
So beloved in fact, chuck that. In twenty twenty, Mexico said, hey, everybody,
check out our new fifty payso bill. And everybody's like, oh,
it's pretty cool, all right, And then they said no, no,
turn it over, right, and everybody turned it over. They're like,
there's an axe lottle on the back of the fifty
payso bill. Now Mexico's government said, yep, cool.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Yeah, every time they do that trick, they put it
on the wrong side and just say, watching this, yeah exactly,
I tell them to turn it over. It kills.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
What's funny is the axe lottel appears to be floating
above the water weirdly. Yeah, it's a strange jam, but
it's cute as a button. On the back of the
fifty payso.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
Bill, Yeah, I agree, and also shout out to Minecraft. Uh,
that's a game that my daughter's obsessed with now, as
many young EN's are. And there is an axe Lottel
in Minecraft.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Okay, I couldn't figure this out. What's a mob in Minecraft?
It seems to be referred to like an individual thing.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
I don't know, okay, apparently no, I don't play, so
I don't know. Okay, fair enough, you like, but do
you talk to your daughter?
Speaker 2 (39:43):
And I'm curious though, ask her and let me know,
will you? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (39:47):
Yeah, I'll just she can text you now.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Oh yeah, tell her to text me what a mob is?
Speaker 3 (39:52):
All right? She does have a phone, but she does
have a little email address, so it's cute text her
friends occasionally. She does have thumb and she does have
thumbs and they work pretty well. Get ready for lots
of memes.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
By the way, what do you mean, Oh, she's gonna
send me if your okay? Does she have the good ones?
Speaker 3 (40:11):
I don't even know how to get a meme in
a text. I have no idea. And the first thing
she did was send me like sixty in a row.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
It's copy and paste buddy.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
I know, but I don't even know where to find them.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Oh that's a big first step.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Yeah, I'm not going to give you your phone number.
You'll your life will change, and not in a great way.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Okay, well, then send me screenshots of her texts to you.
Then all right, leave me out of it.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
Sorry.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
So Mexico City in twenty seventeen said, hey, let's have
an emoji contest because, as as is the case with
cities these days, every city has to have its own
official emoji. And guess what the emojis are based on
in Mexico City to Molly's with the ax Lottle head
sticking out of the Oh no, no, just ax Lottle
(40:58):
doing stuff.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
That's great. Love it. So before we finish up, you
found some good stuff about ax A Lottle care. We
are not experts, but you did find some stuff. Where
did you find this?
Speaker 2 (41:12):
I'll have to tell you in a moment.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
But go ahead, okay, And again you should you know,
if you're getting into the ax A Lottle game, as
pat wise, do all your own research. Don't just listen
to the next you know, five minutes and think I
got it covered. This is just sort of a broad overview, right, right.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Yeah, So there's a few things that you need to
remember with ax a lottles. There very sensitive to water
temperature and water quality. Obviously you want to start with
fresh water, but you want to start with filtered freshwater
to begin with. But you can't just put fresh water
in there and say hey, it's all good, get in there,
ax a lottle. You want to tweak it enough so
(41:50):
that the ax a lottle can be happy and thrive
in there.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
Yeah. You also want to get a fish net. You
don't want to handle as much as you might want
to pet this thing. They have very sensitive skin. It's
very easily damaged, and so you don't want to pick
the thing up or pettit or anything like that. So
get out your little fish net when you're changing water
and stuff like that, and feed them a lot. Right.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Yes, you want to feed them live stuff if possible,
especially when they're young, because they actually have a prey
a predator response, so it's got to be moving for
them to be like, oh that's food. They can eat
dead stuff later on as they get older, but you
want to also be very selective. Don't go out and
like save some money and harvest your own bloodworms. If
you even know how to do that. You want to
(42:35):
buy them from a reputable bloodworm dealer, which you can
find basically on any corner in any talent in America. Sure,
But the reason why is because those things are typically
like disease free parasite free, and if they aren't, those
can basically make your axe a little sick.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
That's right. You don't want to do that. When tank
shopping too, you also want to and this is true
with any fish, and I think a common mistake is
that you don't get the right size tank and habitat.
For whatever it is, they need a little bit of room.
So a twenty gallon aquarium is what they recommend for
like just one single Axi Lottel. If you want more
(43:19):
than one, they say you really shouldn't do that. You
should just have one. You don't get five or six
because you think it's five or six times as cute.
But if you are some sort of professional aquarium type
and you do want to house more than one, then
that tank has to grow, you know, proportionally.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Yeah. The other thing I was saying about the water,
you need to tweak it. You want to keep your
water temperature between sixty and sixty four degrees farent height.
Go figure it out yourself. For Celsius and the pH
you want somewhere between six point five and eight, but
ideally about seven point four to seven point six, which
is basically right in there at neutral. They like neutral
(43:58):
fresh water at sixty to sixty four degrees farent height.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
That's right. And they aren't like fish. You can't just
throw like fish gravel in there. And oh that's a
big way. They need their own really specific habitat the substrate.
And you know, little shards of gravel can really really
harm an axi lottle it can. They tend to just
sort of gulp down water and in that water could
(44:23):
be little tiny shards of gravel. So maybe loose sand
could be a foundation. Definitely, don't just think. Get a
fish tank and fish tank stuff and it'll work for
your axe a lot.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yeah, And some people say, well, I'm just not going
to put anything down. They can just leave the bottom
of the tank bear, which your ax a lotta won't
cut their skin on anything. But they'll also be freaked
out because everything's so slippery. So sand is a good thing.
And they also can burrow into sand if they're nervous
or scared or want to sleep too. That's right, there's
a lot more out there. By the way, that was
(44:56):
from the Atlantic City Aquarium. They know what they're talking
talking about, and you should probably do a lot more
research before you actually get your ax A Lottle and
set its tank up.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Okay, that's right. And also now since we are wrapping
this up, this means that we can go listen to
the ninety nine percent Invisible Episode Model Organism, which also
covers the ax A Lottle. But Dave, who helped us
with this, was like, don't listen to that first, because
you're just gonna want to steal it all because Roman
(45:28):
and the gang there does they do such a great
job and they have forever and Roman as a friend
of the show, and I can't wait to go listen
to it. I'm sure it's amazing here.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
Well, thanks to Roman for making that amazing episode, Thanks
to Charlie's Flores and her mom Gabrielle for sending in
that preliminary research. Thanks to Dave for helping us out,
and thanks to you for listening. Since I thank you
guys for listening and Chuck just said okay, tacitly by
his silence, that means it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 3 (45:59):
That's right. And also thanks to Charlie's their own sure
and Rod Stewart, we got shout out. I mean we
have been picking on him. I was just watching the
videos of old Sir Rod. Is he a sir?
Speaker 2 (46:10):
I believe?
Speaker 1 (46:10):
So?
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Yeah, sir, thanks for being such a great sport rotten.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
Uh all right, I'm gonna call this one. Which one
should I do? I'll do this one. I'll call this
bede bed.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Oh man, what's wrong? I wanted to go the rest
of my life without correcting that.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
Well. Sorry, Uh hey guys, longtime listener of stuff you
should know from uh Wollongong, Australia.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Okay, Wallongong, I guarantee that's not how it's pronounced.
Speaker 3 (46:44):
Wal I gong all you have to do to be
Australian to sound surprise at everything while I go.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
I think that was a New Zealand accent too.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
By the way, probably hey guys, heard your podcast and
how the English language developed and have to correct your
pronunciation of b E. Saint b d E is a
famous Catholic saint who was a learned scholar from the
Jarro area of northern England. He's famous for writing a
history of the English speaking people in English as opposed
(47:14):
to Latin. I think he also had something to do
with the change to the calendar and using BC and
AD and prefixes for dates before and after the birth
of Jesus. Now this is something deserving of a separate
so if you should know topic one day. Anyway, as
I am named after him, I can assure you that
the pronunciation of his name is the same as Bead.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
Is that a disappointment, Yes, that's a disappointment, but I'm
not even convinced. I mean, that's what Bed says.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
Well, Beide says, I've long had to put up with
people mispronouncing my name Bead Bead I and could you die. Well,
that's what he says, and could not help but correct
your attempts to get his name right. Keep up the
great work. Cheers that is from Bade Richie.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Thanks a lot, Beatty or Bead. I will call you
Bead because you said that's how your name is pronounced.
But this doesn't necessarily mean by extension unless you have
a time machine handy that I don't know about that
Beatie's name wasn't pronounced.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
Beatie auh greedy.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
Uh. Well, if you want to get in touch with
this like bad did, thanks a lot. By the way, Bead,
you can send us an email to Stuff Podcasts at
iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 4 (48:29):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
shock in Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you
should know, part of the ongoing, never ending, stupendously outstanding
animal editions.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
That's right. And for us Friday morning edition, which never happens,
we had a little family issue yesterday and you guys
were very sweet and kind and sure agreed to punt
to the recording a day, and so now we are.
We're in our morning show routine.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
That's right. I can't even begin to do a morning
show host impression. I'd like to, but I can't bring myself.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
To who likes lizards?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
That was pretty good, Chuck, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
And that's probably a morning show person. We would probably
call this a lizard.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, yeah, good point, because they're not lizards. They're amphibians.
And what we're talking about are called ACXE Lottle's. And
before we get into it, I think we should give
a hat tip to a guest researcher who helped us
with the very initial research on axeltos, a listener named
Charlie's Flores, who, by the way, her grandma calls her Chuck,
(01:22):
she mentioned.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Ah, that's very sweet. Did she send us a sweet
letter in a picture that she drew?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yes, a picture of her Axe Lottle Boba, And she
told us some pretty amazing initial things about Axe Lottle's
and she and her mom, Gabrielle listen out in Omaha.
So thank you very much to Charlie's for helping us
out with this one. I guess we should also thank
Dave Ruths too.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Yeah, of course, but Dave's not what like six years old?
How old is Chuck?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
She's ten going into she just started the fifth grade.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Oh well, I feel like a dummy too. And I'm
a dad of an eight year old, and I guess
too young. You never know, You never know. You just
can't tell at that age. You're like, are you three?
Are you fifteen? I can't see?
Speaker 4 (02:09):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
So should we talk pronunciation real quick? Because I, because
of my screwy day yesterday, I meant a thousand times
to go look up sort of the indigenous pronunciation of
what we call axe Lottele, and I failed to. But
you were schooling me before we started recording schooling in
a good way.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I got you covered. Yeah, So that very strange looking
word is actually taken directly from the naw What language,
which is the language of the Aztec people, and they
came up with this. We'll talk. Do you want to
just go ahead and talk about that part now?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Sure, okay, good. So the the word axe a lottle,
what we call acx a lotto, is actually as showlut,
even though it's spelled the exact same way in the
knaw What language, Atl is pronounced lut and x is
very often pronounced show. It can also be pronounced waw.
(03:07):
It's kind of all over the place. It's like a
utility baseball player. It can do whatever.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Wow, look at you.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
And by the way, also the Aztecs were called the mischika,
and that x is a she in that case. So
the ax a lottel or a show lut is named
after the Aztec god show lut xolotl.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
That's right, the god of fire and lightning.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Correct, also what else?
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Also the god of physical deformities and dogs and death.
And I'm glad we're starting here because this sort of
reinforces why the ax a lottle, by the way, which
is a very very cute little salamander amphibian. I think
you did say amphibian, But if you think you haven't
seen one, you probably have because of blown up the
(04:00):
internet semi recently with their cute smiles. But they're very
important to the lore and the culture of Mexico because
of the Aztec origins and specifically this god show Lut, who,
like we said, physical deformities, fire, lightning, death, and dogs.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Right, and so according to lore, Sholt was escaping Ketsukotl,
which is Sholt's twin god sibling, and to escape he
transformed into three things. May's plant, which is show lut
in nowa language agave which is mesh mess show Lut,
(04:46):
and then a salamander alt and he still was caught
and killed. But I believe by transforming into those things
he made them exist per chance. So the reason that
the Asshola is kind of like a big deal in
as tech culture is that they were very hyper local
(05:11):
to the as tech people. They were where the as
tech were, and they were a huge food source, a
source of medicine, and also I guarantee a source of
amusement and delight because I don't care what era or
age or epoc you're living in. Yeah, Acxi Lotte's are
one of the cutest animals on the planet.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
They really are. I mean, there's something about that perma
smile that is undeniably cute and affectionate looking. And I
know this is humans putting their stuff on animals, but
you know, the thing smiles. What else can you say?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
You can't there's nothing I need to say. But that's
the thing about Acxi Lottle's Chuck is, yes, if they
were just that cute and it stopped there, they'd still
be worth talking about. But they're really really worth talking about.
And this what Charlie's Flores was trying to explain to
us is that there's so many other amazing, astounding things
(06:07):
about Axel Lotteles that this is just one of the
most interesting animals on the planet.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
It turns out, here's your Disney movie. It's centered around
I'm surprised you haven't done this quite frankly, it's centered
around and Axel Lottle.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Of course, na Axel.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
But sure, yeah, exactly perfect, thank you, and it is,
but it is. And you know, Disney movies always sort
of and you know Pixar all that stuff, they always
sort of have their larger point to make about emotions
or this or that. Maybe this one deals with mental
illness and you have an axe a lottle that is
actually depressed but smiles all the time anyway, and his
(06:46):
little buddies have to help him out and see him
through this.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, and like the climax of the film is where
he've manages to frown, right.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Maybe, so that's pretty great, chuck. Yeah, just to put
a sort of cherry on top of the original cultural story.
Though when the Spanish came around as conquerors, they were like,
oh man, this stuff is delicious. It was. They tried
to they tried to keep a lot of records at
least of what was going on with the Aztec and
(07:16):
like what was important to them culturally. I'm not going
to say like so they could respect them or anything
like that, but they did keep records, and they did
learn about the axe lottle and learn that it was
a source of medicine, and they called it the food
of the lords, and there was there were festivals. It
was this. I mean, I don't want to eat one
(07:36):
of these things. But they had Tamali axe lottle, Tomaly's
and I like it. Tomali. So That's the only time
I was like, hmmm, I.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Could eat one of those if you wrapped it up
into tamali.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Yeah, but I really couldn't because all I could see
is that smile in my brain.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
So axe Lottle's are that would be tough to do,
especially if the head's poking out the end of the
tamali just looking.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Oh man, no, you can't.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
So I said. Axi Lottel's were hyper local to where
the Mishika, the ASTech lived, uh. And they lived in
uh like, basically on a lake. Like Mexico City used
to be an az tech capital called tenock Teetlan, and
tenak Teetlan was built basically on top of lake Uh.
(08:21):
What is it Toshoko?
Speaker 3 (08:23):
I think probably Teshcoco.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Toshcoco, thank you.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
So.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Lake Toushcoco is where the the ax Lotto hails from.
And it's again it's a salamander, and there are other
salamanders that live in that area. But the axe Lotto
only lived in the Lake Toshcoco area. And and as
the Spanish came along and said, you can't build a
(08:47):
city on a lake, what are you crazy, We're gonna
go ahead and drain this lake. One of the remnants
of that lake was an even smaller body of water.
And it's not only a smaller body of water, it's
it's even harder to pronounce than Lake Teshcoco.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
It really is.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
It's Lake Sochi Milko and friends. Look up Sochi Mealko.
It is not, in any way, shape or form, as
far as an English speaker is concerned, spelled like gets pronounced. Yeah,
it's XO c Chi m I Lco. But Lake Sochi
Mealko is a very small body of water. It's basically
a small system of freshwater canals that are the remnants
(09:27):
of Lake Teshcoco. And that is where x a Lotto's live.
Now in the entire world, there's nowhere else, even in Mexico.
There's nowhere else you will find an ax Lottel in
the wild except for in Lake Sochi Milko.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Yeah, and I'm actually going to Mexico City for the
first time in November.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
It's a very cool town.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
I can't wait. Man, And uh, I'm not going to
go on an ax A Lottle tour. I don't know
if they have those. I bet they do. They do,
but they're they're generally not out during the day. But
we'll get to all this stuff as we go, right,
Should we start at the beginning?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yeah, I thought we had started well.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Historically the beginning, I just mean the beginning of axe
lottels as a species, because they are amphibians, like you said,
of the order Urudella, and that is all salamanders. The
scientific name is Ambistoma mexicanum, which very appropriate. I even
know what that means. Ambostoma means blunt mouth, and when
(10:24):
you see to axi lottle, it kind of has a
blunt looking mouth, so it all makes sense. And in Latin,
amphibia for amphibia means double life, and it's called double
life and amphibia because, as we all know, amphibians start
out in water when they're hatched as little eggs, and
they spend some time there as young and swimming around
and using their gills, and then eventually they metamorphosize and
(10:47):
transform into a land creature, which means they grow legs,
their little tails shrink, and they learn to use their
lungs and those gills aren't useful anymore, and sometimes they
even go all right.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yes, that's a that's a typical amphibian. That's just what
they do. Yeah, the gills go away, they start breathing
with their lungs and they live on land. They go
from living in the water living in the land. It's
what makes an amphibian of an amphibian, except except with
axe lottels and a couple other there's a couple other
species of amphibians, mud puppies, I think, is one that
(11:24):
they never leave the water. They're amphibians, but they don't
amphibiate essentially. Yeah, and it's it's something called naotiny, which
is they stay forever young, just like that Rod Stewart's song. Yeah,
and another word for it is pedamorphic, and like Rod Stewart,
yeah exactly. Although no, no, that's not true at all.
(11:47):
But that means that they even in their adult form,
even in like they're fully grown up, they can reproduce,
they're drawing social security, they still are not only look
like their childhood form for all intentsive purposes, their body
inside and out is still in the childhood form.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Yeah, they don't drop that tail like other sallyes do.
They keep that tails called a body fin because it
kind of you know, once you see it, it kind of
looks like it runs up their body. Yeah, they keep
those well, they keep those legs. Their legs wouldn't go
way anyway, but they have those stubby little legs. They
do have lungs, and they also still have those gills,
which we'll talk about a little more in a second,
(12:29):
but they basically breathe almost exclusively through their gills and
they also never use their legs to walk on dry land.
So you know, there's a term in Mexico, Mexican walking
fish is what they can be called, which Day very
funnily points out, like they are Mexican, but they're not
fish and they don't walk, so it's a bit of
(12:49):
a misnomer.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, just a touch. There's a theory as to why
this is going on, like why would this happen? This
doesn't really make any sense.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Like why would they have legs?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Yeah, exactly, that's a great question. And some one of
the theories is that there was a point in time
where they did amphibiate fully and make it out of
the water, so they needed their legs, they needed their lungs.
They do have little tiny lungs, but they're very undeveloped,
so they can't they can survive out of water for
a very short time with those little tiny lungs, but
(13:23):
not for very long. They're clearly not designed to stay
out of water. So the idea is that somewhere in
their evolutionary history they spent some time on land. But
the place where they lived, either like Tushcoco or Lake
Sochi Milko, was so such a great environment for them,
(13:43):
so ripe, with food so abundant. No, what's the opposite
of abundant, Oh, scarce? So there was such scarce predators.
It was just a perfect place to live man, a
golden age to be an Axi lotto, I would say.
And so they stayed in the water, and at some
(14:04):
point in time those genes got frozen in some individual organisms,
and those got passed along, and those gave us Axi
lottos and chuck also, may, I retort to myself. Sure,
So that is one theory. My theory which I would
like to share is wow, Axi lottles are only about
(14:25):
ten thousand years old as a species. Okay, they basically
evolve from other salamanders that they live among, and they
haven't fully I believe, evolved into it an entirely separate species.
They can still procreate with other salamanders, and so I
(14:46):
think what it is, it's a remnant of the salamanders
that they evolved from. That they haven't fully evolved out
of that, and that if you looked at Axi lottles,
you know, one hundred thousand years from now, they won't
have any legs anymore.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
And this is, uh, does anyone is this out there
at all? Is this all you?
Speaker 2 (15:07):
I'm putting it out there, baby?
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Okay? So they used to mate with their other salamander friends.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
And they still can. Like Rod Stewart, that's right, that's right,
he's had one or two salamanders in this time.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
All right, I like it. That makes sense to me.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
In one hundred thousand years, we'll know for sure, right right. Yeah,
once the earth is a big flaming ball of hot gas.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Oh yeah, it'll have come and gone by then.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
All right, So maybe we should take a break. I
think that's a good setup and we talk about how
remarkable this thing is. Just hold on to your hats, everybody,
because this sort of blew my mind and it will
blow yours as well. Right after this, soft jaws.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Want to learn about terrors or color sord Actol, how
to take a perfect boom?
Speaker 4 (16:02):
All about fractalink is con that's a little hunt the
Lizzie Borderers A.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Word up, Jerry.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
All right, So, uh, if you haven't looked up a
picture of an axe lottle, by now, pull your car
off or take a break from jogging or cleaning your
house or whatever you do when you listen to us.
Wake up. Maybe if you're sleeping, look up a picture
of that cute little thing. You've probably seen them on
TikTok or YouTube. Uh, you've probably seen a bunch of
very colorful axe lottles. And those are bread specifically to
(16:38):
sell as pets in those amazing colors. That is not
what color they are in the wild. They are dark brownish,
sort of greenish or really really black. And kids don't
want that. Kids want a hot, pink one, and so
humans have made that possible, right.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
They want the Barbie version of ax lottles, the Barbie edition.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
We all do we want what Barbie versions of everything,
don't we?
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah? For sure? So there's pink and the pink can
it's usually pretty pale, but I would say their faces
can be kind of hot pink. Yeah, white ones pale
yellow lavender. That's my favorite model, green gray. And they
also have glow in the dark ones, which are a
little bit misname because it's not glow in the dark.
(17:24):
They glow under UV lights because they have the same
genes that jellyfish. Some jellyfish do and they were bred
into them. This is not a natural thing, although apparently
they can spontaneously generate that gene in the wild weirdly enough.
But the upshot of it is if you have a
glow in the dark axilotel and you're showing it off
(17:45):
with the black light how it glows, you actually don't
want to do that very much because you're blasting them
with UV radiation and their skin is so delicate. It's
actually really bad for them.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Yeah, and if you're a teenage boy and your mom's
in the room, you don't want to do that anyway.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Right, What do you mean I'm not catching that one?
Speaker 3 (18:04):
That's right. Adults will understands. Moving on, They are about
ten inches long, or they can grow up to ten
inches long. They have those big, wide mouths that look
sort of unusually large for their size and for their head,
and they do have little teeth top and bottom, teeth
(18:26):
and their stubby little legs have four web toes on
the front and five on the rear. And we got
to talk about those gills, because the first thing you
might notice, aside from that winning smile when you look
at an Axi lotto, are those amazing feathery gills sticking
out from the head. They don't look like fish's gills
(18:47):
that you would see, just sort of, you know, just
like dumb old gills on the side of a fish head,
just opening back and forth like an air vent. These
things are, as Dave says, magnificent. There's no other to
describe these wispy, feathery, branched feathers.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
It almost looks like little pieces of coral coming off
of it. There's three, three pair on each side of
its head. Now there's a pair on each side of
its head, times three, right, Yeah, Okay, Chuck, no more
Friday morning recording sessions for me.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Okay, that was some tough mess.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
And they look like flowy and branched and philigreed because
they're essentially like our lungs. Our lungs have avoli, these
air sacs, and if you really look at a detail
of our lungs, they're branched in feathery and philigreed because
that expands the surface area for gas exchange. Same thing
with the axe lottel, except those are gills to them
(19:45):
because they do the oxygen exchange of the gas exchange
under water. And they're on their head.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah, and it's it looks like an adornment almost, you know,
or a hair do.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Like a Larry Fine hairdo from the Three Stooges.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Right, it's cuterer than that.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
I think Larry's hair was super cute.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Okay, As I mentioned earlier, I kind of teased about
an Axi lottle tour in Mexico City. I'm not sure
how they do those, but they are generally not around
during the day. They're pretty sedentary and they hide in
the mud. Nighttime is the right time for the Axi
lotte They come out and eat basically anything that they
can eat their carnivores, anything with a beating heart, whether
(20:29):
it's a worm or a mollusk, or even a crustacean
or a tiny fish, an Axi lotta will chow down
on them. And you mentioned earlier that they can even
though they never go through that metamorphosis that other amphibians
do in order to live a life on land and
do things like reproduce. They can reproduce. They are sexually
(20:50):
mature at six months old, and they're just it's called
the peter Pan state. They're sort of stuck in this
eternal childhood. But those children still want to have babies
and do that thing, you know.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yeah, So how do they do it?
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Well, like many animals, there's a little dancing ritual. It's
called the mating waltz where the male and the female
kind of swim very tightly together. They get their cloacas
and rub them against each other. Things are getting a
little steamy down there in the lake, and then the
male says, here you go, here's a big cone full
(21:26):
of sperm. And the female says, well, thank you very much.
I we'll use my cloaca to accept that be whip
and fertilize my eggs. And those eggs are a lot.
They are about three hundred to one thousand fertilized eggs.
What I wondered is how, I mean, I know, we'll
talk about why they're so endangered, but if they're laying
(21:46):
that many eggs, how many come to fruition? Because that's
a lot of eggs.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
I got you. I found on some message boards. I
don't even know if they call them that any longer,
but on the internet from people who raise acxilatos that
they're actually they a lot of them do, like more
than a than half. It was a news serve. Oh wow,
they they I saw somebody predict about eighty percent. Well hatch,
(22:10):
which is a big deal. If you have a female
and a male Acxi lotel in your tank, you really
have to keep an eye out for eggsacs floating around
because those you'll have a lot of acxi lottos on
your hands.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Yeah, and they if you get one as a pet,
and we'll talk about care a little bit at the end,
but be prepared to have that thing for a while
because in captivity they can live up to twenty five years.
In the wild about ten to fifteen. And if you
remember our we talked about the proteus alemander a long
time ago.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
In our biosbiology episode.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
That's right, that was a good creepy episode. Those things
can live to be one hundred so it's not unusual
for a sally to have a long life.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yeah, and like you said, in captivity up to twenty
five years, And I just want to make sure that
everybody who's buying Acxi lottos as pets these days knows that, like,
you're twenty five years, you're going to have graduated college
and had your first job and maybe even have a
kid while your axilout is still around. So keep that
in mind.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Well, in the Disney movie, maybe that's why the excel
suppress that might be a little too toy story that
the kid sort of doesn't care anymore, but hey, you
never know.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, and we couldn't do that they flushed him down
the toilet because that's like finding Nemo, right, Hmmm.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Is that how Nemo got back into the wild?
Speaker 2 (23:26):
I feel like that happened the summer at some point.
I could be making that up, though it.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Isn't drifted in and out of some of those, you.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Know, it's just sooned out.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Well, I mean a lot of those I really like.
But then you know, when you have a kid, you're
watching so many Sometimes you're working and you know you
know Nemo's down there, but you don't remember how he
got there. You know.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I liked finding Nemo overall, but okay, moment to moment,
I didn't like that movie very much.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
But the whole is greater than the sum of its tissue.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Party, yes, yeah, well put well, put all.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Right, all right, so we haven't blown your mind yet.
Everyone's like, all right, they don't metamor size not the
biggest deal in the world, guys. Here's where the mind
blowing stuff comes in. Overall, salamanders and newts can regrow stuff.
They can regenerate tissue. They can regrow a tail. We
all know that they can regrow a limb. That's fine,
(24:20):
and they come out usually okay. But the axe a
lodel can well you know what I should read, actually
what Stephanie Roy says. This is a researcher from the
University of Montreal.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Can you do your Stephanie Roy impression while you read it?
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Sure, here we go. You can cut the spinal cord,
she sounds a lot like me. You can cut the
spinal cord, crush it, remove a segment and it will regenerate.
You can cut the limbs at any level, the wrist,
the elbow, the upper arm. This all sounds very sadistic,
by the way, and it will regenerate and it's perfect.
There's nothing missing, there's no scarring on the skin. At
(24:57):
the side of amputation, every tissue is repla. They can
regenerate the same limb fifty sixty one hundred times parentheses.
Trust me, I've cut off a lot of legs of
exilotis in parentheses and every time perfect.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Yeah. And what's crazy is like this continues throughout their life.
Like they can do this when they're very young, they
can do it when they're very old. Apparently. The only
change is that it just takes longer the older they are.
But that that new leg, that that new tail, it's
as good as new every time, no matter how old
(25:34):
they are. And that's pretty mind blowing in and of itself.
It gets even crazier than that.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Chuck that's here.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
In addition to like extremities and limbs and tails and stuff,
they can do the same thing with organs. Yeah, and
like important organs too, like the heart and the brain
and their spinal cord. They can regrow it good as
new every time.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Yeah, it's really amazing. And if you think they should
study this stuff to see if humans, you know, could
potentially do something like this with a little help from
ax a lot of stuff, right, they are studying this
stuff because and they've already found some pretty good breakthroughs,
but Axi lottels are very very valuable to study. And
what they've learned so far as far as these limbs
(26:20):
go and other things, is you get that little limb
cut off or something, and the cells nearest to that
limb wound differentiate immediately, so that means it's sort of
like a stem cell. That means they can become any
type of cell kind of instantaneously, and they form a
little a little pile around these undifferentiated cells, and that's
(26:43):
called a blastema. Or then this helps you to visualize
it more, it's also called a regeneration bud. So it's
like a little plant butd or something. Basically, we scar
up like dummies. We form scar like cut off your
arm and you're going to start forming scar tissue. Axe
Lott's say no, no, no, we're going to grow that
thing back with this blastoma, and they do that. They
(27:06):
generate stem cells, bone cells, muscle nerves, whatever you need
to replicate perfectly whatever is now missing.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah, which is pretty amazing considering we have pretty much
the same genes we've figured out the Axi Lottel So
they sequenced an Axi Lottal genome in twenty eighteen. I
believe it's the largest genome ever sequenced because amazing, the
Axi Lottal's genome is second only to the Australian lungfish
(27:37):
in size and number of base pairs. Humans have three
billion base pairs. We're doing pretty good with three billion
base pairs is kind of to be expected. That's a lot.
Axi Lotte's have ten almost eleven times the number of
base pairs that humans do, thirty two billion base pairs
in their genome. And so after examining all this, scientists
(27:58):
said like, hey, we've got some of these genes. What's
different They think is that with axe lotels, those genes
are stuck in the on position. Either they never make
the hormone that would turn those genes off, or they
continue to produce the hormone that keeps those genes on
regardless the fact that those genes are turned on and
(28:18):
then makes them able to just regrow like brand new
every time throughout their life.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Yeah, it's really something else. There's another cool theory about
why this might be true evolutionarily speaking, and there are
scientists that think that maybe at one point in their
history when they were in that lake and they were landlocked,
and food may have been abundant at one time, but
maybe at one point there were too many Acxi lottels
(28:47):
and food wasn't as abundant, and so they may have
turned cannibalistic and said, hey, friend, no, we've been hanging
out a lot lately, but your rear leg is looking
pretty tasty to me, and so I'm just going to
bite that off and eat it if you don't mind.
And that happened so much that the axe A lottos
(29:08):
who thrived were the ones who could grow those limbs
back quicker and survive.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Yeah, which makes sense, not bad. I don't have a
rival theory for that one.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Ah.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Shoot, I could make one up real quick. No, I can't.
It's Friday morning. Maybe if it were a Thursday afternoon.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
But I know.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
So you might say, like, oh, that's cool. I want
to try this at home with my ax a lot
I'm going to cut off its right front leg and
half of its brain and see what happens. Please don't
don't because they do have pain receptors, so they can't
feel pain. Apparently they have a high threshold pain, but
they will still feel pain if you essentially torture them
(29:47):
for your own amusement. So don't do that to your
axe a lottle at home. And by the way, is
these aren't messages to Charlie's flooras because based on her
her preliminary research, she knows what she's doing. She's taking
good care of Boba totally.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Another amazing superpower that these little guys have is the
you know, not only can they grow back things and
grow back organs, but they can transplant organs perfectly, just
like they can grow things back. They don't have a
learned immune system like we do when you get and
we did an episode on organ transplant many years ago,
(30:22):
and as we all know, a lot of times, in fact,
about a third of the time, the human body will
reject the organ because we have a learned immune system
and we'll just say, no, this isn't, this isn't shouldn't
be on my body. Yeah, get this thing out of here.
But axe lottos don't have that, so you can transplant.
It's like one hundred percent non rejection rate for organ transplants.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Yeah, but I mean that's for axe lottel. Right, You
couldn't put like a pig heart in it or anything.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
I don't think they've tried, but probably you're right, I
would say.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
I don't know if we said it or not. But
the different kinds of like lab grown types and varieties
of ax lottols are called morphs. Did you say that.
So there's a type of morph called the firefly morph.
And when it's in the embryonic stage, they'll take if
it's a like a black or dark modeled Axi lottle,
they'll take a tail from a white axe lotto or
(31:15):
pink one, and vice versa, and they will transplant the
tail in the embryonic stage and the thing grows up
and it's like black with a white tail or white
with a black tail. I don't think it's very cool looking,
but I think some people do.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Yeah. Another superpower is that they are one thousand more
times resistant to cancer than other mammals. It's pretty amazing.
And again researchers are studying this because like, could the
cure for cancer potentially be in these cute little sallies
And you know, you never know. They have treated breast
(31:51):
cancer patients with Axi loottle egg serum and it halted
the growth of cancerous tumors. So you know, know.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Yeah, they looked into it and they think what happened
was that the axe Lottle juice reprogrammed the tumor suppressing
genes that had been turned off epigenetically went in and
turned it back on, and so the tumor fighting proteins
and hormones were able to fight that tumor and stop
it from growing. Wow. Yeah, Wow is right, And I
(32:23):
say that big wow calls for a message break. What
do you think? I agree, Stoff we Josh Soft.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
I want to learn about a terroristort in college Taradactyl,
how to take the berg bo all about rectalink is gone.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
That's a little hunt the Lizzie Borderers on the plane.
Everything should know.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Word up, Jerry, so Chuck. There's a big irony with ax.
Aside from the irony that they can reproduce even though
they're young and YadA YadA, they are critically endangered in
the wild because again there's one small, tiny body of
water in outside of Mexico City where they live, and
they live nowhere else in the wild, But there's countless
(33:20):
accil Lottels thriving and living in captivity. Because it was
very clear early on in the mid nineteenth century to
at least some French physicians that they would make great
lab animals to experiment and test on. And so they
took some sample Acxi lottels to France and from that
(33:40):
point on they just kept breeding them and breeding them
and breeding them. Another world has tons of Acxi lottels,
they're just not around in the wild much.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Yeah, big time. You know, we talked about the habitat loss.
There's also a pollution problem. Also, the government introduce carp
i believe in Tilapia into where the axilottos were into
that lake and you know it for a food source
basically for fishermen, but they eat the plants where the
(34:11):
axil lottles like eggs. So that was a problem. And
here's some numbers for you. In nineteen ninety eight there
were about six thousand Axi lottles per square kilometer and
that is down to thirty five three five per square
kilometer today, which is very dead.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, and again critically endangered. And one of the reasons
why there's so many in captivity. I was saying is
that they do make a great lab animal. Apparently they're
experimented on second or third only to rats and mice. Wow, yeah,
that's surprising. That must be as far as vertebrates go.
(34:49):
But they that's where the pink Axi lottels come from
and all the other specimens. Apparently there were there was
what are called lucistic axi lottels. They're almost oh buy
I no, not quite, but they were in that group
of thirty four X lottels that were first taken into Paris.
And so every pink axe lotte is descended from those.
I think there are like six original ones. But the
(35:12):
reason that they work so well in labs is that
they have some really interesting traits.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
Yeah, they are very easy to breed in captivity. They
are easy to keep alive.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
If you know what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Check sure, because we said, you know, they live a
long time. Apparently they have very big cells and they're
easy to look at and easy to examine. And I
think the eggs are thirty times larger than a.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Human, roughly the size of a beach ball.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
They're embryonic neurons are six hundred times larger.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
What's that it's the size of the Grand Canyon.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Okay in big max. Sorry, right, And you know they're
they're just ideal model organisms for the lab, and so
that's why, and you know, because of their superpower, that's
why they are studied a lot.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Yeah, so we found a few things from them already.
We've figured out how organs develop invertebrates, including us, because,
like I said, we realized when we scan their genome
that we have a lot of the same genes. We
use those genes to grow limbs ourselves and lose our
tails ourselves while we're in utero, but after we're born,
probably right before we're born, those genes get turned off.
(36:25):
So we've figured out, thanks to the Axil Lottel how
those genes work and which ones are important. We figured
out how spina bifido works and where it comes from.
And thyroid hormones you wanted those isolated Axi Lotte's got
you covered.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Yeah, it's pretty amazing. If you're in did you already
say that the fact that they're growing like tons and
tons of these in a lab doesn't mean you can
just throw them back in a lake because they have
a shortage.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
There, right, I did not say that.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Well, I just said it because that's what I was
thinking this whole time. I was researching. It was well,
why then, since they are critically endangered, can't you just
release you know, tens of thousands of these But it
just doesn't work that way. These morphs are bred for
the lab, they're not bread for that lake, and it
apparently just doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
It'd be like moving your city cousin in with your
country cousin. Like you might have a decent sitcom on
your hands, but it's only going to last a season
or two, that's right.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
It all falls apart on Super Tuesdays exactly.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
So yeah, they can't do that. That's not to say
that they won't find a place where they could introduce
them to the wild. It's just apparently taking them back
to where they're from or where they originated is not
on the table.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
Yeah. And if you're wondering, well, what are they doing,
they are trying because the axe lotel is such a
culturally important thing, scientifically important animal. It is a flagship
species that they designated i think semi recently, which which
helps obviously protect it. They are now building sheltered areas
(38:06):
that don't have those grass eating tilapia. They're blocking them
out so they can lay those eggs safely. Where they
had for you know, eons. Actually, how long is an eon?
I probably misuse that. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Let's say, I'm sure I'll get any pretty long time, Okay,
pretty long time.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
The tour guides and the locals have all been you know,
educated and trained on best practices for like fishing and
doing those tours, and you know, hopefully all that stuff
makes a difference and really sinks in because it is
a beloved cultural creature.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
So beloved in fact, chuck that. In twenty twenty, Mexico said, hey, everybody,
check out our new fifty payso bill. And everybody's like, oh,
it's pretty cool, all right, And then they said no, no,
turn it over, right, and everybody turned it over. They're like,
there's an axe lottle on the back of the fifty
payso bill. Now Mexico's government said, yep, cool.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Yeah, every time they do that trick, they put it
on the wrong side and just say, watching this, yeah exactly,
I tell them to turn it over. It kills.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
What's funny is the axe lottel appears to be floating
above the water weirdly. Yeah, it's a strange jam, but
it's cute as a button. On the back of the
fifty payso.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
Bill, Yeah, I agree, and also shout out to Minecraft. Uh,
that's a game that my daughter's obsessed with now, as
many young EN's are. And there is an axe Lottel
in Minecraft.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Okay, I couldn't figure this out. What's a mob in Minecraft?
It seems to be referred to like an individual thing.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
I don't know, okay, apparently no, I don't play, so
I don't know. Okay, fair enough, you like, but do
you talk to your daughter?
Speaker 2 (39:43):
And I'm curious though, ask her and let me know,
will you? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (39:47):
Yeah, I'll just she can text you now.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Oh yeah, tell her to text me what a mob is?
Speaker 3 (39:52):
All right? She does have a phone, but she does
have a little email address, so it's cute text her
friends occasionally. She does have thumb and she does have
thumbs and they work pretty well. Get ready for lots
of memes.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
By the way, what do you mean, Oh, she's gonna
send me if your okay? Does she have the good ones?
Speaker 3 (40:11):
I don't even know how to get a meme in
a text. I have no idea. And the first thing
she did was send me like sixty in a row.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
It's copy and paste buddy.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
I know, but I don't even know where to find them.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Oh that's a big first step.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Yeah, I'm not going to give you your phone number.
You'll your life will change, and not in a great way.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Okay, well, then send me screenshots of her texts to you.
Then all right, leave me out of it.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
Sorry.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
So Mexico City in twenty seventeen said, hey, let's have
an emoji contest because, as as is the case with
cities these days, every city has to have its own
official emoji. And guess what the emojis are based on
in Mexico City to Molly's with the ax Lottle head
sticking out of the Oh no, no, just ax Lottle
(40:58):
doing stuff.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
That's great. Love it. So before we finish up, you
found some good stuff about ax A Lottle care. We
are not experts, but you did find some stuff. Where
did you find this?
Speaker 2 (41:12):
I'll have to tell you in a moment.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
But go ahead, okay, And again you should you know,
if you're getting into the ax A Lottle game, as
pat wise, do all your own research. Don't just listen
to the next you know, five minutes and think I
got it covered. This is just sort of a broad overview, right, right.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Yeah, So there's a few things that you need to
remember with ax a lottles. There very sensitive to water
temperature and water quality. Obviously you want to start with
fresh water, but you want to start with filtered freshwater
to begin with. But you can't just put fresh water
in there and say hey, it's all good, get in there,
ax a lottle. You want to tweak it enough so
(41:50):
that the ax a lottle can be happy and thrive
in there.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
Yeah. You also want to get a fish net. You
don't want to handle as much as you might want
to pet this thing. They have very sensitive skin. It's
very easily damaged, and so you don't want to pick
the thing up or pettit or anything like that. So
get out your little fish net when you're changing water
and stuff like that, and feed them a lot. Right.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Yes, you want to feed them live stuff if possible,
especially when they're young, because they actually have a prey
a predator response, so it's got to be moving for
them to be like, oh that's food. They can eat
dead stuff later on as they get older, but you
want to also be very selective. Don't go out and
like save some money and harvest your own bloodworms. If
you even know how to do that. You want to
(42:35):
buy them from a reputable bloodworm dealer, which you can
find basically on any corner in any talent in America. Sure,
But the reason why is because those things are typically
like disease free parasite free, and if they aren't, those
can basically make your axe a little sick.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
That's right. You don't want to do that. When tank
shopping too, you also want to and this is true
with any fish, and I think a common mistake is
that you don't get the right size tank and habitat.
For whatever it is, they need a little bit of room.
So a twenty gallon aquarium is what they recommend for
like just one single Axi Lottel. If you want more
(43:19):
than one, they say you really shouldn't do that. You
should just have one. You don't get five or six
because you think it's five or six times as cute.
But if you are some sort of professional aquarium type
and you do want to house more than one, then
that tank has to grow, you know, proportionally.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Yeah. The other thing I was saying about the water,
you need to tweak it. You want to keep your
water temperature between sixty and sixty four degrees farent height.
Go figure it out yourself. For Celsius and the pH
you want somewhere between six point five and eight, but
ideally about seven point four to seven point six, which
is basically right in there at neutral. They like neutral
(43:58):
fresh water at sixty to sixty four degrees farent height.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
That's right. And they aren't like fish. You can't just
throw like fish gravel in there. And oh that's a
big way. They need their own really specific habitat the substrate.
And you know, little shards of gravel can really really
harm an axi lottle it can. They tend to just
sort of gulp down water and in that water could
(44:23):
be little tiny shards of gravel. So maybe loose sand
could be a foundation. Definitely, don't just think. Get a
fish tank and fish tank stuff and it'll work for
your axe a lot.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yeah, And some people say, well, I'm just not going
to put anything down. They can just leave the bottom
of the tank bear, which your ax a lotta won't
cut their skin on anything. But they'll also be freaked
out because everything's so slippery. So sand is a good thing.
And they also can burrow into sand if they're nervous
or scared or want to sleep too. That's right, there's
a lot more out there. By the way, that was
(44:56):
from the Atlantic City Aquarium. They know what they're talking
talking about, and you should probably do a lot more
research before you actually get your ax A Lottle and
set its tank up.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Okay, that's right. And also now since we are wrapping
this up, this means that we can go listen to
the ninety nine percent Invisible Episode Model Organism, which also
covers the ax A Lottle. But Dave, who helped us
with this, was like, don't listen to that first, because
you're just gonna want to steal it all because Roman
(45:28):
and the gang there does they do such a great
job and they have forever and Roman as a friend
of the show, and I can't wait to go listen
to it. I'm sure it's amazing here.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
Well, thanks to Roman for making that amazing episode, Thanks
to Charlie's Flores and her mom Gabrielle for sending in
that preliminary research. Thanks to Dave for helping us out,
and thanks to you for listening. Since I thank you
guys for listening and Chuck just said okay, tacitly by
his silence, that means it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 3 (45:59):
That's right. And also thanks to Charlie's their own sure
and Rod Stewart, we got shout out. I mean we
have been picking on him. I was just watching the
videos of old Sir Rod. Is he a sir?
Speaker 2 (46:10):
I believe?
Speaker 1 (46:10):
So?
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Yeah, sir, thanks for being such a great sport rotten.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
Uh all right, I'm gonna call this one. Which one
should I do? I'll do this one. I'll call this
bede bed.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Oh man, what's wrong? I wanted to go the rest
of my life without correcting that.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
Well. Sorry, Uh hey guys, longtime listener of stuff you
should know from uh Wollongong, Australia.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Okay, Wallongong, I guarantee that's not how it's pronounced.
Speaker 3 (46:44):
Wal I gong all you have to do to be
Australian to sound surprise at everything while I go.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
I think that was a New Zealand accent too.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
By the way, probably hey guys, heard your podcast and
how the English language developed and have to correct your
pronunciation of b E. Saint b d E is a
famous Catholic saint who was a learned scholar from the
Jarro area of northern England. He's famous for writing a
history of the English speaking people in English as opposed
(47:14):
to Latin. I think he also had something to do
with the change to the calendar and using BC and
AD and prefixes for dates before and after the birth
of Jesus. Now this is something deserving of a separate
so if you should know topic one day. Anyway, as
I am named after him, I can assure you that
the pronunciation of his name is the same as Bead.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
Is that a disappointment, Yes, that's a disappointment, but I'm
not even convinced. I mean, that's what Bed says.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
Well, Beide says, I've long had to put up with
people mispronouncing my name Bead Bead I and could you die. Well,
that's what he says, and could not help but correct
your attempts to get his name right. Keep up the
great work. Cheers that is from Bade Richie.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Thanks a lot, Beatty or Bead. I will call you
Bead because you said that's how your name is pronounced.
But this doesn't necessarily mean by extension unless you have
a time machine handy that I don't know about that
Beatie's name wasn't pronounced.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
Beatie auh greedy.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
Uh. Well, if you want to get in touch with
this like bad did, thanks a lot. By the way, Bead,
you can send us an email to Stuff Podcasts at
iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 4 (48:29):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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