Having lost much if their habitat, the Axoloti is struggling to survive. Once widespread through the high-altitude lakes around Mexico city, the Axoloti an amphibian that is about 30cm long is restricted to just a few inland canals. Here somewhere between 50 and 1000 of these lizards live. Water pollution, habitat loss, and predation by invasive fish species such as Carp and Tilapia are all pushing this amphibian towards extinction.
Public awareness of this animal has exploded. Apart from its inclusion in games, it also features on the 50 peso coin from 2021.
Will it be able to survive? certainly there is now the will, however, it is hard to clean up waterways that lie so close to a huge city.
Time will tell if the Axoloti will survive in the wild, or whether future generations will think that they are a phantom of the game creators imagination.
