But if you look carefully at his
left eye (on your right), you'll see that it's much brighter than the rest of
him.
Why? When this animal was a little larva (like a tadpole), his own eyes were removed. Then he received an eye transplant. But the donor was an albino axolotl larva, that is Mexican salamander.[2]
The foreign eye eventually hooked up to his brain, and then he was able to see again. The reason for the experiment was to find out, first of all, if the foreign eye would take or be rejected. If it did take would it work? And if so would it be as good as his original eye? The answer was yes.
What's neat about that has to do with the optic nerve. Not only did it regenerate through the host's eye socket, but its fibers wormed their way through his brain and plugged into the right place. It would really be wonderful if somebody could figure out why that happens. Maybe the formula would tell us how to fix damaged eyes, brains and spinal cords in people.