In search of another wild Axolotls

Axolotls is critically Endowment threatened. According to IUCN Red List for threatened speciesThese water monsters – a national symbol characterized by the 50 -billion bills project in Mexico, which was once considered divine entities, the “twin” of the Azzalcoatl god – is very dangerous. Extinction In the wilderness.

The numbers tell them better. In 1998, there were 6000 axes per square kilometer in its natural environment, boycott Xochimilco In the south of Mexico. By 2004, this number decreased to only 1000, and by 2008 it was only 100. The 2014 census of the Axolotl wild residents in Mexico found only 36 of the creatures. Now, after a decade, a new survey is taking place. Xochimilco is home to the remnants of a vast channel network built by Aztec, the UNESCO Heritage site, although the region faces environmental deterioration as a result of increased urbanization.

Everything indicates that for axolotl, the countdown continues to extinction. But there is a last hope. Scientists from the Environmental Restoration Laboratory at the Independent National University of Mexico (UNAM), responsible for the AXolotl Census, seeks to reflect this trend and maintain one of the oldest land vertebrates on this planet.

“The goal of the census is to know the current situation of the Axolotl residents,” says Luis Zambrano, the project leader and founder of the Environmental Restoration Laboratory. He says public scenes are important, but make sure they are in the wilderness, there should be evidence. Armed by emphasizing that axolotls is still present in Xochimilco, and with the estimation of the number of researchers, researchers are then planning to run campaigns to combat wrong information about species and conservative guidance, as well as to strengthen the wild population by launching educators. The final results of this poll will be published in the first half of 2025, and a new preparation for 2026 will be planned.

WIRED directly saw how scientists Vania Mendoza, Viviam Crespo and Paola Cervantes – with local villagers, such as Bazilio Rodriguez – in the census. Use traditional fishing techniques with innovative methods such as Environmental DNA analysisWhere the species can be tracked by searching for the DNA that throws it in its surrounding districts.

The wiping at dawn occurs in xochimilco, one of the other remains of the old lake system in the Mexico Basin, where the plant and animal species that have been erased from other parts of the city of Mexico are still. It is a magic oasis in the monster capital that looks like a mechanized fairy tale, where sadness and swallowing are heard with the appearance of the sun. While we travel through the scene on a wooden raft, we see that the lake is still full ChinampasThe artificial agricultural islands developed for the first time in the ages before the Spanish, which surprised the first Spanish who came to these lands.

Axolotl contains four legs, a long tail, which is night and meat pain. It appears in four different colors: it contains wild Axolotls on brown black, while the transfusion variables include leucistic (white with dark eyes), white albino, and golden albino. “Until now, we have not found any Axolotls; however, DNA analysis provides an opportunity,” says Paula Servans, a graduate in Earth sciences and part of the UNAM team in this year.