Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 78, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 May 1902 — A Curious Transformation. [ARTICLE]

A Curious Transformation.

Naturalists have long been familiar with a newt-like creature, breathing by gills and lungs both, and inhabiting the lakes of Mexico and other American waters. This is the axolotl. It was also discovered that in certain localities this creature, which, by the way, breeds freely In Mexico, sheds its skin, casts off its gills and Its tail fin, develops another color of body and leaves the water to become a land newt. Under this latter guise it is known as the amblystoma. . . • • . ■ Naturally, the explanation of this curious transformation rests on the fact that_the axolotl is really the young or tadpole stage of the amblystoma form, but the peculiarity here is that in Its first stage it should breed and multiply and continue to reproduce axolotls, as if It were a perfectly mature animal. The occurrence of such cases points out to us one way in which species can be evolved, for, had we not been acquainted with the relationship of these forms, nobody would have hesitated to describe as two essentially distinct animals. Lately it has been shown, says the London Chronicle, that, while in Colorado and Dakota the transformation Is complete, In Mexico the axolotl stage is apparently permanent. Here, probably, the Influence of the environment on a living being is typically illustrated.