In 2025, Mexico News Daily once again covered plenty of “hard news” and “bad news” stories.
As we have done since MND was founded more than 11 years ago, we also reported numerous stories that made us laugh, brought a smile to our faces, warmed our hearts and even left us scratching our heads in bewilderment.
Now, as we approach the end of the year, it’s time to look back at the amusing, uplifting, inspirational, heartening, gratifying, strange, surreal and “only in Mexico” stories MND published this year.
We continue today with a compilation of articles we published between July and September.
Click here to read our Q1 compilation, and here to read our Q2 compilation.
Look out for our “México mágico” compendium for the final quarter of the year later this week!
México mágico: A look back at MND’s weird and wonderful stories in the third quarter of 2025
We published a slew of articles about animals between July and September — some firmly in the good news category, while others drifted toward the strange and surreal.
There was a conservation victory at the Guadalajara Zoo, where the world’s smallest turtle was bred in captivity for the first time, and news that Mexican scientists were at the forefront of restoring the rare California red-legged frog to some muddy ponds in Southern California.
In another positive development in the animal world, census results published in August revealed that Mexico’s jaguar population was climbing, although the country’s biggest cat isn’t out of the woods yet.
There was good news for another endangered species in the third quarter of 2025, with the launch of an urgent effort to save the achoque, a critically endangered salamander that’s the cousin of the famous axolotl.
Guadalajara Zoo celebrates its first hatching of world’s tiniest turtle
In more surreal animal news, we reported on an unusual “marriage” between a mayor in Oaxaca and a female caiman, and a family in Tlaxcala that was sharing its home with 2,000 furry bats. A batty story indeed!
If all the stories about real animals weren’t enough, there’s also the tail (excuse the pun!) of a four-legged robot dog, Waldog, who was put to work championing animal welfare in the northern city of Monterrey.
In non-furry, slimy and scaly news, we plunged to new depths with this viral story about a Jarritos delivery truck that was swallowed by a sinkhole in Mexico City.
Another truck had a mishap in Tamaulipas, overturning on a federal highway and leaving its thirst-quenching cargo — beer — exposed and vulnerable to theft, which is exactly what happened. Fortunately, the driver of the vehicle was uninjured, though he might have needed a chela himself to get over the shock and loss.
How a Tlaxcala family is learning to share their home with 2,000 live bats
While some of the opportunistic thieves might have used Tajín to prepare themselves a michelada, U.S. actress and singer Selena Gómez used the spicy seasoning as inspiration for a limited-edition makeup kit.
In less piquant but more bizarre and fungal news, in late September we reported on a group of experimental musicians in the northern state of Durango who make mushrooms sing — literally. Los Yuma Project uses a technology that transforms the natural electrical impulses of mushrooms and plants into music, creating innovative nature-derived soundscapes.
Also using technology in an innovative way is Andrés ta Chikinib, an educator in Chiapas who has been teaching the Indigenous language Tzotzil to ChatGPT. His goal? To ensure that the language — spoken by more than 400,000 people in Chiapas — has a presence in the digital world.
Among the other out-of-the-ordinary stories we covered in the third quarter of the year were those about a lawmaker who proposed sending the aroma of Veracruz coffee to space; Mexico’s first-ever tree-planing tournament; and a viral 15th birthday celebration for a teen whose first party was a flop.
Blood, guts, sex and scandal: The history behind Mexico’s infamous ‘nota roja’ tabloids
Also in the third quarter of the year, we delved into the world of nota roja journalism in Mexico, which focuses on violent crime, accidents and other adverse events, with gory, stomach-turning photographs often accompanying the sensationalist stories.
We hope you enjoyed reading our quirkier stories this year, and perhaps found a few here that you missed. We’re already looking forward to another year of weird, wonderful and distinctively Mexican stories in 2026!
By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies (peter.davies@mexiconewsdaily.com)
