. American types of animal life. Zoology; Animal behavior. 112 TYPES OF ANIMAL LIFE A little less than twenty years ago, there were a number of axolotls living in the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, under the care of a very intelligent keeper. One day to his astonishment he missed one of his axolotls, but found in its place a very different-looking eft, and one without any gills. A little later the same thing Fig. 31. happened in the case of several of them, and thus it became known that the axolotl is but a big and precocioiis baby, ready to change rapidly, under certain conditions, into the for
. American types of animal life. Zoology; Animal behavior. 112 TYPES OF ANIMAL LIFE A little less than twenty years ago, there were a number of axolotls living in the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, under the care of a very intelligent keeper. One day to his astonishment he missed one of his axolotls, but found in its place a very different-looking eft, and one without any gills. A little later the same thing Fig. 31. happened in the case of several of them, and thus it became known that the axolotl is but a big and precocioiis baby, ready to change rapidly, under certain conditions, into the form of an amblystoma. This change is a very remarkable one, because it by no means consists merely in the loss of the gills, but involves changes in the bones of the skull, the number and ; arrangement of the teeth, as well as other important struc- tural transformations. The change was the more singular because, although the unchanged '" axolotls continued to breed _' freely in their immature con- rdition without any care or trouble to their keeper, none THE AXOLOTL. ^f ^j^g transformed ones could be induced by any effort of his to do so. It seemed as if they had, on obtaining maturity, discarded all con- jugal famUy feelings as mere follies of youth. This curious change in the axolotl, and its long persist- ence in breeding in a condition which, as far as form and structure go, must be regarded as an immature one,. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Mivart, St. George Jackson, 1827-1900. Boston, Little, Brown and Company
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjecta, booksubjectzoology
