Mexico's salamander-like axolotl may have disappeared from its only known natural habitat in Mexico City's few remaining lakes.
It's disturbing news for an admittedly ugly creature, which has a slimy tail, plumage-like gills and mouth that curls into an odd smile.
The axolotl is known as the "water monster" and the "Mexican walking fish," and its only natural habitat is Lake Xochimilco, which is suffering from pollution and urban sprawl.
Biologist Luis Zambrano of Mexico's National Autonomous University says the most recent three-month attempt to net axolotls found not one of the creatures. He says researchers are planning a second three-month hunt for the creatures, which still survive in labs and breeding tanks.
Millions once lived in the giant lakes of Xochimilco and Chalco on which Mexico City was built. Using four stubby legs to drag themselves along lake bottoms or their thick tails to swim like mini-alligators, they hunted plentiful aquatic insects, small fish and crustaceans.
Legend has it that Xolotl – the dog-headed Aztec god of death, lightning and monstrosities feared he was about to be banished or killed by other gods and changed into an axolotl to flee into the lake.
The Mexican Academy of Sciences said in a statement that a 1998 survey found an average of 6,000 axolotls per square kilometre, a figure that dropped to 1,000 in a 2003 study, and 100 in a 2008 survey.
Tovar Garza said it is too early to declare the axolotl extinct in its natural habitat. He said that in early February, researchers will begin a three-month search in hopes of finding what may be the last free-roaming axolotl.