Hacker News

From the article it doesn't appear they've ever been found alive in the wild anywhere but their natural habitat. This was likely a remarkable chance happening where an owner released one and she found it within close succession or else it likely would have died very quickly.

If there is a wild population, that would be an even more amazing story.

It is absolutely an abandoned pet. They cannot survive outside the tropics. Hell, they can't even survive outside the 2 lakes in Mexico City that they're hyperadapted to

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

1000 wild ones. There's much more in captivity than in the wild.

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

Axolotls have also been used for over 200 years for medical research related to regenerative biology. They’re unique among vertebrates in that they can regenerate nearly every part of their body, even parts of their brain. https://orip.nih.gov/about-orip/research-highlights/amazing-...

Contrary to the report, they are actually not difficult to keep as pets - they are just highly sensitive to pollutants in the water.

The unfortunate case for the wild population, is that they naturally inhabit a location which today has one of the highest human population densities in the world, and hence massive pressure on water resources. We could probably quite easily re-establish a breeding population in remote areas in Europe but would constitute an invasive species and hence wouldn't happen.

As a species, they are not endangered due to their very large populations now in the pet trade (though these then get inbred, become domesticated etc).

I believe all captive ones are cross-bred, so are distinct from the native species

"in the wild" might be doing a lot of heavy lifting, or it may be based on subspecies or similar.

I don't really expect to find endangered species at the local pet store.

the pet ones are almostly entirely captive bred so they are pretty distinct by now

Axolotl's have become a global icon. First as an anti-colonial protest symbol for indigenous peoples. But now it's even a creature in Minecraft

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.

To be fair, many people think Narwhals are a mythical creature. For good reason imo. They're fantastic

Not its natural habitat - it would probably die in winter

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”

People are telling you it would die in the winter but the truth is it would die in a week. This pet was surely abandoned in the past 48 hours and that's why this is so rare.

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

1. The article already mentions the parents of the girl who caught it are looking into how to best keep an axolotl and a bigger tank has already arrived.

2. Axolotls can't survive in a Welsh climate. This creature will live much longer as a pet than it would in the wild.

It's against the law for it to be in the wild. And the temperature range in which it can survive is quite narrow, it would probably die sometime this year if left alone.

As mentioned in the article, this was almost certainly someone's pet and dumped in the river when they couldn't take care of it anymore. Axolotls are endemic to Mexico.

I suspect someone dumped their pet. Considering its from Mexico I also suspect it prefers a warmer water/climate?

Because Wales is not its wild

I think her family was visiting Wales, rather than being natives :)

"siliogogogoch" for short :)

And how we would react if it catched her and put her in a small cage.

That would make her description in the article as a "young female" a little more fitting, at least.

I have a feeling you're fighting a losing battle here

In Spanish, it's "ajolote".

In the Spanish of the 1490s and early 1500s, there was a "SH" sound, spelled with X, the same way there is today in other Iberian languages like Portuguese, Galician, Catalan, or Basque. They got to Mexico and wrote many indigenous words with "SH" sounds (like "Mexico" and "axolotl") with X. Shortly after this, the pronunciation shifted to the modern Spanish J sound (which in much of the Spanish speaking world is like the CH in loch, but in some countries is like an H sound).

Well, actually I suppose the hardest part is to pronounce the other consonant hispanicized as -tl at the end (a soft lisp)

[ɬ] voiceless alveolar lateral fricative [0]

in a sufficient fluent manner (except you happen to speak e.g. Welsh, there the sound is written as ll so by happenstance the "axolotl" found in Wales can be pronounced fluently by the Welsh) otherwise you are saying it half correct which is arguably worse.

So let the nahuatl speaking people have a laugh at your expense for pronouncing it the germanic way or if you want to go unnoticed do it the evolved spanish romanic way, a good middle ground I guess.

Anyway I think it is generally a lot fun to hear words pronounced "wrong" by foreigners or having trouble hearing/pronouncing it "right" respectively heavy accents are hilarious icebreakers (:

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_dental_and_alveolar_...

Well most non nahuatl speaking mexicans simply call them by the spanish traduction, ajolote.

Nobody says it your way - https://youglish.com/pronounce/axolotl/english

No the "X" is pronounced "ten" like in "Mac OS X"

If you want it to be pronounced "sh", just write it "sh".

And "valet" is supposed to rhyme with "ballot" not "ballet" but you'll still sound like an idiot if you say "take your car to the val-it"

Or like Meshico

If you're speaking Spanish yes.

Is there a word for foreign loan words that have their pronounciation changed?

I feel like axolotl fits in that category as it’s a commonly known animal in the English speaking world, that has a common pronounciation remarkedly different from the language it came from.

Loan words going from English -> Asian languages like Thai and Japanese such as “beer” becoming “beeru” fit the same vein.

Given the damage to the abdomen, we might infer it was axed a little.

That’s like telling the Japanese that “cutlet” is not pronounced “katsu.” It ain’t gonna change. Or even having southerners pronounce squirrel with two sellable [autocorrect : syllables] Good luck with that!

[dead]

"Shocolate"? Who says it like that?

Are you sure that x is an ecks and not a chi that straightened up a bit?

The thing about script and type is they only really work by prior agreement.

There is a set of marks on the page that we all agree on "is" an axolotl. How we choose to say that out loud is up to the individual. On the other hand, if we were to converse with you directly ... vocally ... then you could tell us how you say the name and if we were convinced that you were at least Mexican, we might follow your lead.

Script, type and sounds rarely match up precisely, ever.

I live in a town called Yeovil (Somerset, UK). I have a mug with at least 65 different spellings of the name over the last ~1900 odd years. It started off as Gifle "bend in the river" in a Saxon language. We have had a "great vowel shift" in "english" and three different varieties of "english" noted since then, just in these parts, let alone elsewhere.

The place name was spelt as Evil or Euil for a while! No-one batted an eyelid because the concept of the grammar nazi was a long way in the future and spelling was pretty random in general. Ivel, Ivol, Givelle and many more have been documented.

Please record how you say the name and make it available. Fiddling with text will never cut it.

They are unique to like 2 lakes in Mexico. This is someone's pet that they dumped there. It would not have survived more than a week in Wales had it not been found.

I think it likely speaks to how much more common they are as exotic pets than they have been in the past. That she found it before it died is surprising, and the longer I think about this story the longer I wonder if they just bought it as a pet and the river discovery was a gag for online clout.

One in a million chances happen nine times out of ten.

Especially with 8 billion humans wandering around.

why is your reply faded