The Axolotl
Welcome everybody to my blog post!!!! Here I will be talking about my STEAM class named Population. This class was all about math such as standard deviation, mean, median, and mode. It was also about the science behind evolution, not the Pokemon kind but the real life evolutions of plants, animals, and humans . We gained so much knowledge about standard deviation and evolution and median and mode and all those good math and science things.It was time to put our knowledge to use. So as our last days of class came around, we were tasked with choosing any organism we wanted and base our project on it. Our project was to learn more about our chosen organism and lead you through a journey to educate you and entertain you, on math and evolution. So fasten your seatbelt and get ready to be led into an adventure with our amphibian friend, the axolotl!
Let us start with an introduction, the axolotl is commonly found in Mexico. Not just anywhere though; they are found in the swampy lake bordering the south of Mexico Cit where they are often surrounded by herons and storks which sometimes feed on them. As for the axolotls themselves, they feed on tiny fish or plants on the bottom of the lake they live in. The axolotl is like an underwater puppy. They are very playful and have adorable faces. What really makes these little guys so cool is they have amazing regenerative abilities they can even regenerate their own brain! Not only that, but these little animals are babies for life meaning they stay in the form of babies unless they are forced to evolve like a real life pokemon.
(source: my editing abilities and google search “axolotls”)
Alright now that you know some more about Axolotls it’s time to introduce you to our gang /group of axolotls that we will be joining on this adventure:
So as you can see Maria,Dae, Dmitri, Freckles, Alexandra, Hae and Maksim all have one thing in common: they are a certain shade of pink. And what about João, Stewart , and Miguel? Well, all three of them are a certain shade of grey . So I decided to use and use a color scale from pink to grey and used this group as my population as it was the only group we were going to accompany on this journey.
After giving each axolotl member a value according to the color scale, I decided to organize them and calculate all the necessary things like mean, median, and mode in order to be able to identify the central tendencies of this group of Axolotls. Here are the results of all my math work:
As we can see, there are two main variations of the axolotl; they are either a grayish color or a pink shade color . The pink is actually a genetic mutation since in the wild, a pink axolotl would not survive due to its lack of camouflage. Due to its popularity in humans wanting a pink axolotl many who are born pink are usually made to be pets. Due to that, we can see more than half the axolotls are a shade of pink. Now that we can see the tendencies of our group in a mathematical form,it’s time to switch it up! By this, I mean it’s time to see how well our little team would survive in an environment that is not the same. So for this we will take a trip to Puerto Rico where we will be checking out the rainforest El Yunque.
In this environment, our axolotls will face new challenges but will also have certain advantages. One of the challenges they would face are the dangers of new predators both on water and land, although along with new predators axolotls will also have new prey. For example, the coqui is a type of miniature frog which lives in this rainforest and I believe, due to the axolotls' bigger size and their ability to prey on both land and sea and of course them being omnivores who like eating tiny insects and animals(once they evolve into their full salamander version). As we already know axolotls can evolve into full on salamanders when put into a new environment with stress and a new need to adapt, this will obviously give them an advantage because as an amphibian their food resources are doubled as they can eat both on land and underwater. Although unfortunately it is also obvious that some of the axolotl in our group would survive far longer than the others.
As we can see in the picture,the dark green colors and muddy water would be the perfect camouflage for our grey axolotl friends. Miguel, Stewart and João would easily camouflage and instantly increase their survival chance whereas their pink counterparts would be much easier to find and die as a result of being eaten. As the axolotls go on evolving it might mean the end of the pink axolotl right? Survival of the fittest? Well actually the case of the axolotl is a bit strange since they are going extinct many have started breeding only mostly pink axolotls to be sold as pets to people which may actually save them from extinction, Meaning in the future which is around 500 years there might be more pink axolotls than grey ones, only if they survive the verge of extinction of course.We have reached the end of our journey together. As we return our axolotl friends back to their swampy home in Mexico, we can see we’ve learned quite a lot about this fascinating little animal. Unfortunately, our little friends are facing some big threats in their own home. The pollution in the water has gotten so bad that axolotls have been dying at an alarming rate due to that. If we don’t take action to stop such pollution it can be the end of axolotls and their cute kind, Save the Axolotls! So until next time amigos have a nice day!
Let us start with an introduction, the axolotl is commonly found in Mexico. Not just anywhere though; they are found in the swampy lake bordering the south of Mexico Cit where they are often surrounded by herons and storks which sometimes feed on them. As for the axolotls themselves, they feed on tiny fish or plants on the bottom of the lake they live in. The axolotl is like an underwater puppy. They are very playful and have adorable faces. What really makes these little guys so cool is they have amazing regenerative abilities they can even regenerate their own brain! Not only that, but these little animals are babies for life meaning they stay in the form of babies unless they are forced to evolve like a real life pokemon.
Alright now that you know some more about Axolotls it’s time to introduce you to our gang /group of axolotls that we will be joining on this adventure:
(images all came from google search “Axolotl”)
As we can see, there are two main variations of the axolotl; they are either a grayish color or a pink shade color . The pink is actually a genetic mutation since in the wild, a pink axolotl would not survive due to its lack of camouflage. Due to its popularity in humans wanting a pink axolotl many who are born pink are usually made to be pets. Due to that, we can see more than half the axolotls are a shade of pink. Now that we can see the tendencies of our group in a mathematical form,it’s time to switch it up! By this, I mean it’s time to see how well our little team would survive in an environment that is not the same. So for this we will take a trip to Puerto Rico where we will be checking out the rainforest El Yunque.
(source: Afar.com)
In this environment, our axolotls will face new challenges but will also have certain advantages. One of the challenges they would face are the dangers of new predators both on water and land, although along with new predators axolotls will also have new prey. For example, the coqui is a type of miniature frog which lives in this rainforest and I believe, due to the axolotls' bigger size and their ability to prey on both land and sea and of course them being omnivores who like eating tiny insects and animals(once they evolve into their full salamander version). As we already know axolotls can evolve into full on salamanders when put into a new environment with stress and a new need to adapt, this will obviously give them an advantage because as an amphibian their food resources are doubled as they can eat both on land and underwater. Although unfortunately it is also obvious that some of the axolotl in our group would survive far longer than the others.
As we can see in the picture,the dark green colors and muddy water would be the perfect camouflage for our grey axolotl friends. Miguel, Stewart and João would easily camouflage and instantly increase their survival chance whereas their pink counterparts would be much easier to find and die as a result of being eaten. As the axolotls go on evolving it might mean the end of the pink axolotl right? Survival of the fittest? Well actually the case of the axolotl is a bit strange since they are going extinct many have started breeding only mostly pink axolotls to be sold as pets to people which may actually save them from extinction, Meaning in the future which is around 500 years there might be more pink axolotls than grey ones, only if they survive the verge of extinction of course.We have reached the end of our journey together. As we return our axolotl friends back to their swampy home in Mexico, we can see we’ve learned quite a lot about this fascinating little animal. Unfortunately, our little friends are facing some big threats in their own home. The pollution in the water has gotten so bad that axolotls have been dying at an alarming rate due to that. If we don’t take action to stop such pollution it can be the end of axolotls and their cute kind, Save the Axolotls! So until next time amigos have a nice day!
(credits for the drawing to the drawception contest artiste “OooOOOoOo” )
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