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https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/nuns-scientists-microchips-an-alliance-to-save-mexicos-achoque-salamanders/>
"In a monastery beside a 16th-century basilica in Pátzcuaro, Mexico, Dominican
nuns move between rows of aquarium tanks, checking water quality and feeding
earthworms to hundreds of brown salamanders with flowing gills.
Sister Ofelia Morales Francisco has cared for the critically endangered achoque
salamander (
Ambystoma dumerilii) for nearly 20 years. She and her team have
mastered the amphibians’ complex reproductive biology, raising generation after
generation in tanks that have become an unexpected ark.
This species, the achoque (pronounced ah-choke-eh), is known from only one lake
on the planet, Lake Pátzcuaro in Mexico’s central Michoacán state. Scientists
estimate that fewer than 150 adults remain in the wild. However, the monastery
boasts a colony of around 300 salamanders, representing the largest known
captive population in the world.
Scientists from Chester Zoo in the United Kingdom recognized that the
monastery’s thriving colony offered an opportunity. They collaborated with
Mexican conservationists to determine whether small, rice-sized identification
chips could be implanted in captive achoques without harming the animals.
The microchips could enable conservationists to identify individual wild
salamanders during catch-and-release health checks. With a quick scan,
researchers can access information including sex, health status and approximate
age for each animal.
According to their results, published in the
Journal of Zoo and Aquarium
Research, the microchips stayed in place in 97.5% of salamanders over more
than 175 days, with no negative health effects.
“We were chipping them with the nuns watching protectively,” Adam Bland,
assistant team manager for amphibians at Chester Zoo, said in a press release.
“It’s a real demonstration of how anyone can be involved in conservation.
People from all different backgrounds are working to save this species.”"
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
