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by wickedwillie on August 2nd, 2004

wickedwillie

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Can salamanders regenerate all lost limbs?

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  • by lynnenorth on October 18th, 2005

    lynnenorth

    Yes, they can regenerate both tails and limbs. Moreover, they can regenerate them repeatedly, and they can regenerate parts of their heart or parts of their eyes. They have a quite robust regenerative system. Unfortunately for them, this tends to mean that many of them spend their lives in tanks in laboratories across the world, getting bits chopped off of them while biologists try to figure out how it works.

    Incidentally, since no-one that I know of has ever suggested "salamanders" as a common ancestor for all organisms, and since adaptations which develop along one line of descent are under no particular obligation to appear in other lines of descent (indeed, it would be amazing if they did spread that way; while it is not unlikely that one could inherit a trait from one's grandfather, it would be quite a feat to inherit a trait from one's cousin, unless the family tree were a great deal more incestuous than is proper) -- then it really isn't that surprising that we haven't all got this useful ability.

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