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Discussion (108 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
I'm a southerner and we generally have squirrels in plentiful quantities, so it's never occurred to me to sell them. /s
But I do wonder how many do live in Wales. If it’s not just an abandoned pet that would be really interesting.
If there is a wild population, that would be an even more amazing story.
There are less than 1,000 of them in the wild. Trust me if it was possible to establish a population somewhere else outside of captivity, scientists and conservationists would already be on it
That. Or the family fabricated the story for online fame.
Not saying that i have any evidence either way. Fundamentaly it is an unverifiable feel-good story with great online “viral” potential. It might be a very lucky axolotl who got abandoned, found and re-captured in the short window it could survive in the wild. It can also be a viral content strategy capturing eyeballs. In my, admitedly very jaded, guestimate I would give the two options about equal chances.
Also there are 1,000 of these in the wild but there are over a million of them in captivity. You can get a typical morph for about $50.
They evolved to be quite dependent on the unique agricultural islands in the Valley of Mexico called Chinampas. These were drained by the colonizers. Which is why Mexico City is now facing a severe water crisis and also why these creatures are endangered
I don't really expect to find endangered species at the local pet store.
They are common in scientific research as they have amazing regenerative abilities; they will often mistakenly bite each other's legs off as juveniles (they are not the smartest creatures) and then grow them back in a few weeks, good as new. They made it into the exotic pet trade and now they are quite common in captivity, but now critically endangered in the wild. There are attempts to breed and repopulate them, with some limited success.
Another interesting thing, in many countries and states it is legal to keep an axolotl and illegal to keep a Salamander.
They are actually fairly easy to keep in my experience, with two caveats. 1) you need to be able to keep the water below 24 Deg C, this means spending some money on chillers even in sub-tropical countries. 2) If you have a pair in the same tank (regardless of sexing) you need to be prepared to cull the eggs! (freeze them) Prices here went from ~$50NZ each down to around $10-15 each due to the Minecraft craze.
Edit: oh the article says as much
> Axolotls as pets have seen a surge in popularity in recent years after they were introduced to video games such as Minecraft and Roblox.
Also, the child seems quite familiar with the wildlife
> She said Evie was "always finding things" like newts and bugs, but said the axolotl discovery was a surprise.
What's even funnier is the mother's reaction who apparently didn't believe axolotl's were real
> "I've been telling Evie all this time that those creatures she watches on YouTube, they're not real.
> This is because they have the same environmental, dietary and behavioural needs in captivity as they do in the wild.
I thought this was just odd. Don’t most animals that aren’t heavily domesticated like that? I mean that’s true of most all pet fish, for example.
And then there's the water temp thing, that caught me off-guard and I was using frozen water bottles for a few weeks until my chiller arrived, if the tank had been located in a different part of the house it might have been required.
I think people anticipate needing heaters for certain types of fish, but I'd never have expected to buy a cooling unit for aquatic life.
Axolotls are somewhat popular as pets so I’m thinking someone got rid of theirs by tossing it in the river and the girl just happened to find it afterwards.
Far more plausible explanation than “found in the wild 9000km and an ocean away from its place of origin”
They are hyper adapted to the water cycles, nutrient profile, and pH levels of the Xochimilco lake system in Mexico city and were taken care of by indigenous people for thousands of years. They have never survived anywhere outside of these lakes
Having said that there are surely a lot of factors that would make its survival impossible in wales given how hard it is for them to survive in their original ecosystems.
The historic range of the axolotl was indeed a bit wider than the current lakes beneath Mexico City, but not that much wider
2. Axolotls can't survive in a Welsh climate. This creature will live much longer as a pet than it would in the wild.
Mexican axolotl, 10, finds rare Girl under Welsh bridge.
Especially with 8 billion humans wandering around.