In Mexico, the Ajolote's Fate Lies in Troubled Waters Richard Fausset - Los Angeles Times
go to original October 2, 2012

The salamander, long a metaphor for the Mexican soul, risks extinction unless its sole habitat, the canal system of Xochimilco, can be restored.  (revistamundoverde.net)

MEXICO CITY — Somewhere underneath the hull of Armando Tovar's boat, the aquatic manifestation of the great god Xolotl was slithering along the muddy canal bottom, digesting bugs, laying eggs and trying to avoid extinction.

Even though he could not see the creature, Tovar knew it would be confronting its troubled environment with that weird fixed smile, the one that makes it appear to be in on some cosmic joke.

As a 9-inch salamander, of course, the ajolote (pronounced ah-ho-LO-tay) couldn't know its own cultural significance in Mexico. It couldn't know its role in the Aztec creation myth. Or its freak-show star status among biology nerds for its ability to regenerate lost limbs, heart cells and bits of brain. Or its allure, in the world of arts and letters, as both a cryptic literary symbol and a metaphor for the Mexican soul.

It couldn't know, on this placid Tuesday morning, that Armando Tovar was in this long, flat wooden boat, with his colleagues and their water-quality monitoring devices, hoping to save it from oblivion.

Tovar, 33, a biologist at Mexico's National Autonomous University, or UNAM, is one of a group of scholars seeking to solve the ecological puzzle of the ajolote and its sole habitat, the canal system of Xochimilco, the last watery remnant of the Aztec society built on the lakes and wetlands of the Valley of Mexico.

Today, Xochimilco is a heavily visited oasis of crops and canals hemmed by the teeming, concrete presence that some here call la mancha urbana, the urban stain. Its 110 miles of waterways are a place where tourists and locals fritter away Sunday afternoons, floating on brightly colored gondolas, drinking beer and taking in the area's remaining chinampas, small agricultural islands that were invented by Aztec farmers.

The precious green space scrubs carbon dioxide from Mexico City's famously polluted air, serves as a rest stop for 84 species of migratory birds and helps recharge a perilously overtaxed aquifer.

But it also is dealing with pollution issues of its own, and that has consequences for the salamander whose strangely childish looks have made waves as far as Japan, where it was the inspiration for a Pokemon character.

In 1998, Xochimilco was home to tens of thousands of ajolotes. Today, Tovar said, the number might be as low as 100.

The forces aligned against the ajolote are formidable, some as old as Mexico itself.

Read more at The Los Angeles Times

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