[prmoustache]

They used to live in some others areas too. I once visited some places in the sierras close to Queretaro and while we were walking along the river a local guide told me he hasn't seen one in a decade but he used to see them regularly when he was a teenager.

Having said that there are surely a lot of factors that would make its survival impossible in wales given how hard it is for them to survive in their original ecosystems.

[culi]

He may have been referring to the very closely related Ambystoma velasci

The historic range of the axolotl was indeed a bit wider than the current lakes beneath Mexico City, but not that much wider

[prmoustache]

Yes there were more than one specy, somewhere between 15 and 20. I don't know tge names of them all and the one most emblematic of xochimilco may very well be limited to this area but that doesn't mean the other species do not count, especially if they were all called axolotl by the indigenous population.

[culi]

I see. Yeah there are 32 species in the same family and they almost all look like an axolotl before they undergo metamorphosis. The unique thing about axolotls is they are the only salamander species in the world that doesn't undergo metamorphosis (this is called neoteny). It'd be like if a frog just stayed as a tadpole its whole life.