MEXICO CITY — Legend has it the axolotl was not always an amphibian. Long before it became Mexico’s most beloved salamander and efforts to prevent its extinction flourished, it was a sneaky god.

“It’s an interesting little animal,” said Yanet Cruz, head of the Chinampaxóchitl Museum in Mexico City.

Its exhibitions focus on axolotl and chinampas, the pre-Hispanic agricultural systems resembling floating gardens that still function in Xochimilco, a neighborhood on Mexico City’s outskirts famed for its canals.

“Despite there being many varieties, the axolotl from the area is a symbol of identity for the native people,” said Cruz, who participated in activities hosted at the museum to celebrate “Axolotl Day” in early February.

While there are no official estimates of the current axolotl population, the species Ambystoma mexicanum — endemic of central Mexico— has been catalogued as “critically endangered” by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species since 2019. And though biologists, historians and officials have led efforts to save the species and its habitat from extinction, a parallel, unexpected preservation phenomenon has emerged.

Axolotl attracted international attention after Minecraft added them to its game in 2021 and Mexicans went crazy about them that same year, following the Central Bank’s initiative to print it on the 50-peso bill. “That’s when the ‘axolotlmania’ thrived,” Cruz said.

All over Mexico, the peculiar, dragon-like amphibian can be spotted in murals, crafts and socks. Selected bakeries have caused a sensation with its axolotl-like bites. Even a local brewery — “Ajolote” in Spanish — took its name from the salamander to honor Mexican traditions.

Before the Spaniards conquered Mexico-Tenochtitlan in the 16th century, axolotl may not have had archaeological representations as did Tláloc — god of rain in the Aztec worldview — or Coyolxauhqui — its lunar goddess — but it did appear in ancient Mesoamerican documents.

In the Nahua myth of the Fifth Sun, pre-Hispanic god Nanahuatzin threw himself into a fire, reemerged as the sun and commanded fellow gods to replicate his sacrifice to bring movement to the world. All complied but Xólotl, a deity associated with the evening star, who fled.

“He was hunted down and killed,” said Arturo Montero, archaeologist of the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas. “And from his death came a creature: axolotl.” According to Montero, the myth implies that, after a god’s passing, its essence gets imprisoned in a mundane creature, subject to the cycles of life and death. Axolotl then carries within itself the Xolotl deity, and when the animal dies and its divine substance transits to the underworld, it later resurfaces to the earth and a new axolotl is born. “Axolotl is the twin of maize, agave and water,” Montero said.

Current fascination toward axolotl and its rise to sacred status in pre-Hispanic times is hardly a coincidence. It was most likely sparked by its exceptional biological features, Montero said.

Through the glass of a fish tank, where academic institutions preserve them and hatcheries put them up for sale, axolotl are hard to spot. Their skin is usually dark to mimic stones — though an albino, pinkish variety can be bred — and they can stay still for hours.

Aside from their lungs, they breathe through their gills and skin, which allows them to adapt to its aquatic environment. “And they can regenerate parts of its heart, spinal cord and brain.

“This species is quite peculiar,” said biologist Arturo Vergara, who supervises axolotl preservation efforts in various institutions and cares after specimens are for sale at a hatchery in Mexico City.