Axolotls in Phuket?

[casey]

I was chatting to someone about my new hobby of axolotl keeping yesterday and they said that when they went to Thailand they saw some axolotls in the muddy water in Phuket.

I asked if they were out of the water, and she said yes, in and out and I said, well axolotl's don't live outside water, so maybe it was a tiger salamander that you saw, or some sort of newt.

Has anyone else heard of where axolotls live in the wild? I know that one of the lakes they came from originally has dried up, and that they are endangered in the wild, but I just thought I'd ask.

 

[lindsay]

I think wild axolotls are found only in Mexico (hence Mexican walking fish) but there are a lot of weird things in Phuket - I saw a massive eel swimming around in a sewer drain when i was there. Maybe someone dumped their domestic axies in the water and they bread?

 

[joan]

I doubt it. Phuket is far too hot to sustain any sort of axolotl population. But yes, axolotls are only native to mexico (and only 2 lakes in mexico at that (well, that is if they're not extinct now)). What she probably saw were mudskippers, which are fish that look vaguely like axolotls, and live in muddy water in the tropics.