Lake Zirahuén is a small

endorheic lake An endorheic lake (also called a sink lake or terminal lake) is a collection of water within an endorheic basin, or sink, with no evident outlet. Endorheic lakes are generally saline as a result of being unable to get rid of solutes left in the l ...

in the

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

Santa Clara del Cobre Santa Clara del Cobre () is a Magical town (Pueblo Mágico) and municipality located in the center of the state of Michoacán, Mexico, 18 km from Pátzcuaro and 79 km from the state capital of Morelia. While the official name of the mun ...

Michoacán Michoacán, formally Michoacán de Ocampo (; Purépecha: ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Michoacán de Ocampo ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Michoacán de Ocampo), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. It is a deep mountain lake with a sandy bottom that is partially covered with mud. It covers an area of and has a volume of . At times Lake Zirahuén has been part of an open and continuous hydrological system together with

Lake Cuitzeo Lake Cuitzeo () is a lake in the central part of Mexico, in the state of Michoacán. It has an area of . The lake is astatic, meaning the volume and level of water in the lake fluctuates frequently. It is the second-largest freshwater lake in Mexic ...

and

Lake Pátzcuaro Lake Pátzcuaro (Spanish: ''Lago de Pátzcuaro'') is a lake in the municipality of Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, Mexico. Lake Pátzcuaro lies in an endorheic basin, which does not drain to the sea. A watershed area of 929 square kilometres drains into ...

, draining into the

Lerma River The Lerma River ( es, Río Lerma) is Mexico's second longest river. It is a river in west-central Mexico that begins in Mexican Plateau at an altitude over above sea level, and ends where it empties into Lake Chapala, Mexico's largest lake, near ...

. Today it is a closed basin like Lakes Cuitzeo and Pátzcuaro, although ecologists consider it a sub-basin of the Lerma- Chapala basin. The Zirahuén allotica ''(

Allotoca meeki ''Allotoca meeki'', commonly known as the Zirahuen allotoca or the ''tiro de Zirahuén'', is a species of fish endemic to Lake Zirahuén, a small endorheic mountain lake in Michoacán state of central Mexico. The specific name honours the Amer ...

)'', a

Goodeid Goodeidae is a family of teleost fish endemic to Mexico and some areas of the United States. Many species are known as splitfins. This family contains about 50 species within 18 genera. The family is named after ichthyologist George Brown Good ...

fish, is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to Lake Zirahuén."''Allotoca meeki'', Zirahuen allotica (Alvarez, 1959)", ''Fishbase''. Accessed November 15, 2009

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lake Zirahuen Lakes of Mexico, Zirahuen Zirahuen Landforms of Michoacán