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axolotl // 2003-03-12

fuck fuck fuck. i just smashed MY MUG. the mug i've been carrying around at work for the past 6 years. my baby is totally gone. at lunch i went back to the store i got it at to see if they still made them, and they don't. fuck. never mind they had them up until a couple of months ago. bastards.

i have no idea what i'm going to drink my tea out of now. a paper cup? jesus christ.

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all those suggestions! it was pretty close, really. it came down to ideas from weeb and peth, and i was torn because they were both so cool.

from peth:

"arajane, your interesting species should be the axolotl, a South American Salamander. The albino ones are really cute, their heads, when viewed face forward, look like elliptical smiley faces. Their name alone is super cool."

from weeb:

"do your report on the pangolin. rudyard kipling even wrote a story about it--it's a mammal that has scales, and looks like a scaley anteater. when attacked by its enemies, it rolls up into a ball of no thank you, and rolls away. it also is cute in a prehistoric kind of way."

honestly, though, i narrowed it down to these two because they had the best names. but finally, i chose the axolotl because, after reading a little about it, it seems to be truly the most interesting species i've ever heard of and it's all relevant to the things i've been studying in biology. for example, it's life cycle is totally different from most animals in that it undergoes a process called neoteny. the axolotl stays in its larval form for quite a long time, and doesn't develop all the characteristics of an adult organism. so it continues to be larvae and grows in that form (and gets much larger than a normal larval salamander) until it reaches sexual maturity. crazy! plus, it can regenerate limbs and stuff.

so, for suggesting the axolotl, peth gets a very special gift from my trip to japan in a couple of weeks. peth, if there's anything in particular you want from japan, just let me know. otherwise i'll get you a special little gifty of my own choosing.

before // after