Adopt an Axolotl

With their frilly gills, shimmering tails, and smiley faces, axolotls have won over many fans in recent years. Axolotls keep their youthful features as they grow older. Thanks to their “aww” factor and video game appearances, axolotls have become an increasingly popular choice as pets.

Axolotls are more than just cute faces, though. When they get hurt, they can regenerate limbs, organs, and even parts of their brains. Scientists are studying this superpower in the hopes of one day finding a way for it to help humans.

That’s just one reason researchers are racing to save axolotls. Scientists from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) are focusing on Lake Xochimilco (soh-chee-MEEL-koh). Located near Mexico City, this lake and its canals are the only place where axolotls still live in the wild. Lake Xochimilco had once been an axolotl paradise, brimming with fish, tadpoles, and other prey.

But beginning in the early 1900s, the population of Mexico City began to grow. As the population boomed, the lake became polluted. Builders drained and paved over much of the wetlands to make way for roads and buildings. And the government added new fish, like carp and tilapia, to the lake. The fish feasted on axolotl eggs. The unique salamanders began to disappear. Today, there are fewer than 1,000 of them left in the wild. 

The UNAM team is working with local farmers to create refuges for axolotls. For centuries, farmers have tended chinampas. These floating farms provide food and shelter for axolotls. At the ends of canals between chinampas, researchers have installed mesh cages that keep predators out. The cages contain native plants and volcanic rock that help filter pollution from the water. 

UNAM is able to pay for this work thanks, in part, to donations from its virtual Adopt an Axolotl program. People get to choose an axolotl, name it, and receive a certificate with their pet’s photo. 

Diana Laura Vázquez Mendoza heads the program. She hopes the public’s fascination with axolotls will help save the species.

“Axolotls are in danger of extinction,” Vázquez Mendoza says. “But you can do something.”

1. Why have axolotls become popular pet choices in recent years?

2. What does the article describe as an axolotl “superpower,” and why are scientists studying it?

3. How does the virtual adoption program help axolotls?