High-tech hope for rare amphibians living in a single lake in Mexico

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2018-04-22

Zoo experts, nuns and academics have teamed up to ID-chip critically endangered Mexican salamanders.Eighty rare achoque salamanders in Mexico and the UK were implanted with tiny ID chips to check whether the microchips, which are roughly the size of a grain of rice, would stay in place if used on the dwindling wild population.They devised a specific implantation method to make putting the chips in place as stress-free and safe as possible.The process was led by Adam Bland, Assistant Team Manager for Amphibians at Chester Zoo, whose study was published with colleague Dr Gerardo Garcia and coauthors Dr Omar Dominguez, Dr Rodolfo Perez and Dr Richard Preziosi in JZAR journal recently.Thirteen of the salamanders in the study lived behind the scenes at Chester Zoo, while 26 came from the Centro Regional de Investigaciones Pesqueras Patzcuaro and another 13 are cared for at the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo.A colony of achoques in the care of Domincan nuns at the Monasterio de la Virgen Inmaculada de la Salud provided 28 of the animals used in the study., Credit:Chester Zoo / Avalon

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