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In Search of the Last Wild Axolotls
Using environmental DNA analysis and traditional fishing techniques, researchers are seeking answers about the current population of axolotls in their habitat. The numbers are alarming.
According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, these aquatic monsters—a national symbol that features on Mexico’s 50 peso bills, and which were once considered divine entities, the “twins” of the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl—are at “extremely high risk of extinction in the wild.” Armed with confirmation that axolotls are still present in Xochimilco, and with an estimate of how many, the researchers then plan to run campaigns to combat misinformation about the species and to guide conservation, and also to bolster the wild population by releasing reared individuals. “The high density of tilapia we have detected worsens the situation of the axolotl, whose critical state reflects the deterioration of Xochimilco, an ecosystem vital to the quality of life in Mexico City,” says Vania Mendoza Solís, codirector of the census and a master’s student in marine sciences and limnology, the study of lakes.
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