[Animals] The animal that’s everywhere and nowhere

[FazzNoth]

Axolotls are among the most widespread amphibians on Earth. In the wild, they’re almost extinct.

 

The small salamander known as the axolotl, whose cartoonish face resembles a smiling emoji, is among the most widespread amphibians on Earth. You can buy them as pets online, collect them in the game Minecraft, and watch them perform on Instagram and TikTok. Often pink in color with feathery external gills, axolotls are also po[CENSORED]r in laboratories: Scientists love studying them because they can regrow limbs, spinal cords, and even portions of their brains. Roughly 1 million are under human care worldwide, according to some experts.

 

Yet in their home country of Mexico, where they’re celebrated as cultural icons, axolotls are critically endangered and on the verge of extinction. The only place you can find them in the wild is in a watery borough of Mexico City, the second-largest city in the Western Hemisphere. There are fewer than three dozen per square kilometer here, down from 6,000 in the 1990s.

This paradox — that axolotls seem to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time — raises a vexing question. If an animal is thriving in labs and aquariums, should we worry that it’s dying in its native waters? Or, asked another way: How important is the “wild” in wildlife?

 

Most searches for wild axolotls now end in failure, Luis Zambrano, a leading axolotl researcher at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), told me last year. They’re simply too rare. Yet in November, I set out for Xochimilco (pronounced so-chee-MEEL-ko) in the south of Mexico City. I wanted to learn the lessons of axolotls in their natural habitat, and I had a hunch I might get lucky.

SomeSome endangered animals live deep in the rainforest, far from civilization. Not the axolotl. The salamander resides in narrow canals that surround farms called chinampas, or “floating gardens,” and provide water for the crops and a way to travel. With its skinny streets and wooden boats ferrying people around, Xochimilco feels a bit like Venice, but with the added smell of freshly cooked tamales and the crow of roosters.

https://www.vox.com/22877353/axolotl-salamander-pet-extinction-mexico