
The axolotl has nearly disappeared from its natural habitat - QAPereo
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-05921-w
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userbinator
_But although there might be just a few hundred individuals left in the wild,
tens of thousands can be found in home aquariums and research laboratories
around the world. They are bred so widely in captivity that certain
restaurants in Japan even serve them up deep-fried._

Doesn't that mean it's not actually extinction, but more like domestication?

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azernik
There are worries about those in captivity, though:

> By the time that day comes, however, the wild axolotl may be gone. That
> worries Gardiner and Sandoval Guzmán because the animals that they study,
> like many lab animals, are highly inbred. Scientists use an ‘inbreeding
> coefficient’ to measure how small a gene pool is. Identical twins have a
> coefficient of 100%; totally unrelated individuals would score close to
> zero. A score above 12% indicates a population in which individuals are
> mostly breeding with their first cousins, and is considered a serious
> concern by ecologists and geneticists. The famously inbred and unhealthy
> Spanish Habsburg kings of the seventeenth century often had a coefficient
> somewhere above 20%. The average axolotl inbreeding coefficient is 35%.

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reassembled
Is there a reason they can't release them into a new habitat somewhere, even
constructed specifically for the Axolotl?

Also if they are so prolifically inbred in captivity, couldn't they capture
another specimen and start a new line either with a captive specimen or
another wild specimen?

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crispinb
We're losing so much of our planet's biota, and at such a catastrophic pace
(eg 58% decline in vertebrate abundance since 1970), that it's hard to know
where to concentrate resources. This is an ongoing debate amongst ecologists.
There's a fundamental quandary: the problem is planetary, a specieswise
response is known to be inadequate, but it's the only one on offer.

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meri_dian
The answer is to allow evolution to do its job and produce species capable of
dealing with human dominance of the planet, while at the same time doing our
best to transition to sustainable energy sources.

~~~
crispinb
Science fiction is an entertainment, not an answer.

As for answers: answers to what? Topsoil loss (about 50 harvests left and
counting)? Freshwater disappearance? Billions of sea-level-rise refugees with
the inevitable resulting regional wars?

Unlimited so-called 'economic growth' has always been imaginary (it's not
'growth' in anything; it's entropy transfer as we shift from from complex and
sustainable systems evolved over millennia to crude early-stage technological
systems). It is not so glorious a work of the imagination it is worth
destroying our real physical living home for.

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lawrenceyan
The answer is quite simple really. Move offworld! :)

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dredmorbius
Physically, metaphorically, or biologically.

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brndnmtthws
Axolotls are fascinating animals. Here's an interesting YouTube video all
about them: [https://youtu.be/Eo50ctoOTWs](https://youtu.be/Eo50ctoOTWs)

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kevmo
Bats are another noticeable species that is dying out. The earth is currently
undergoing its sixth mass extinction event.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction)

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QAPereo
Bats are _major_ pollinators... we are so cooked.

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diggernet
> The axolotl is on the brink of annihilation in the canals of Mexico City,
> its only natural habitat.

Their only _natural_ habitat is _city canals_?

~~~
crazygringo
"The species originates from numerous lakes, such as Lake Xochimilco
underlying Mexico City... As of 2010, wild axolotls were near extinction due
to urbanization in Mexico City and consequent water pollution, as well as the
introduction of invasive species such as tilapia and perch... Surveys in 1998,
2003 and 2008 found 6,000, 1,000 and 100 axolotls per square kilometer in its
Lake Xochimilco habitat, respectively. A four-month-long search in 2013,
however, turned up no surviving individuals in the wild. Just a month later,
two wild ones were spotted in a network of canals leading from Xochimilco."
[1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axolotl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axolotl)

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agumonkey
Random thought, if we ate axolotl limbs, we could stop killing animals

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karmakaze
Is this the inspiration for the "how to train a dragon" character? The
resemblance is uncanny.

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eat_veggies
The Pokémon Mudkip was also inspired by the axolotl!

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refrigerator
I always assumed it was based on the Mudskipper
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudskipper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudskipper))
but can see a bit of both in Mudkip :)

