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Swim, fishies. Swim through the veil of steel.
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Everyone loves the axolotl, the neotenic salamander with external gills that look like crazy hair and a sneaky little smile. For nearly a decade conservationists have been warning that these animals could be on the verge of vanishing. The Mexican Academy of Sciences has stated that after a recent attempt three months to survey the animals, they were not able to find a single wild specimen.
Axolotls are the typical textbook example for neoteny, which is when an animal reaches sexual maturity without completing the metamorphosis into a typical adult. A fully grown axolotl looks quite a bit like a salamander in the larval stage. They are endemic to central Mexico and were found in only two lakes. A fully grown axolotl grow to be about 23 cm (9 in), though some individuals have reached 45 cm (18 in).
Luis Zambrano of the National Autonomous University in Mexico recently completed a three-month-long survey around Lake Xochimilco and did not find any of the animals. In 1998, a similar survey netted about 6,000 individuals per square kilometer, but the number plummeted to 1,000 in 2003 and only 100 in 2008. The axolotls have been labeled as critically endangered since 2006, due to the small population size and declining trend.
Read more.
Axolotls are the typical textbook example for neoteny, which is when an animal reaches sexual maturity without completing the metamorphosis into a typical adult. A fully grown axolotl looks quite a bit like a salamander in the larval stage. They are endemic to central Mexico and were found in only two lakes. A fully grown axolotl grow to be about 23 cm (9 in), though some individuals have reached 45 cm (18 in).
Luis Zambrano of the National Autonomous University in Mexico recently completed a three-month-long survey around Lake Xochimilco and did not find any of the animals. In 1998, a similar survey netted about 6,000 individuals per square kilometer, but the number plummeted to 1,000 in 2003 and only 100 in 2008. The axolotls have been labeled as critically endangered since 2006, due to the small population size and declining trend.
Read more.
