Tequila Fish

The tiny, harmless tequila fish is not widely known. Only one river in the entire world, close to Mexico's Tequila volcano, was home to the small creatures. They became extinct in 2003, but few people were aware of it. Yet, that does not imply that nobody did.

Even though tequila fish were just two inches long and only lived in this one river, they were still valuable to society. They fed on disease-carrying mosquitoes and supplied fish and birds with food. They were just as necessary as all the other species in the cycle of life. Even before the fish went extinct, scientists who understood the species was in danger started making plans to save it.

Five breeding pairs of fish were shipped back to Mexico in 1998 from an English zoo. A university there started a programme to rescue the species, and by 2012, they were prepared to move some of their small charges to a pond on the school grounds. 80 fish were put in the pond so that they would have to hunt and be hunted. It was thought that the fish may be released back into the wild if they made it. In the pond, there were 10,000 tequila fish by 2016.

After educating the community about conservation, the value of preserving the fish, and the necessity of maintaining the river's cleanliness, 1,500 were released in 2017. They multiplied, and today the population of their original river home is stable once more.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Cyprinodontiformes
Family: Goodeidae
Genus: Zoogoneticus
Species: Z. tequila