#pupfish

devils hole pupfish earrings 💙🐟 made with vintage and salvaged beads ✨

Good News: Devils Hole Pupfish are Rebounding After a Dramatic Decline.

In response to earthquakes which caused limited food and a sharp population decline in 2025, the multiagency team, made up of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service and Nevada Department of Wildlife biologists, acted quickly and released a number of captive reared Devils Hole pupfish back to the wild. This action was instrumental in ensuring the wild population’s survival and was the first time that captive Devils Hole pupfish have been returned to the wild. Currently, the wild population is around 70, nearly double the numbers seen in 2025. Did you know: The Devils Hole pupfish is believed to have the smallest geographic distribution of any known vertebrate species? It exists in a single submerged cave system, Devils Hole, within Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Nevada. The depth of Devils Hole is unknown. Professional scuba divers from the National Park Service have mapped Devils Hole’s depth to nearly 500 feet, but the bottom has never been found.

To Live with the Death Valley Pupfish

The Death Valley Pupfish, or Salt Creek Pupfish (Cyprinodon salinus) is a species of pupfish found only in the Death Valley region of the Mojave Desert; within this region there are populations in Salt Creek, Cottonball Marsh, River Springs and Soda Lake. These locations are characterized by shallow water four times the salinity of the ocean, with temperatures regularly reaching peaks of 46 °C (116°F) and lows of 0 °C (32 °F), and limited vegetation.

Like other pupfish, Death Valley pupfish are quite small. Most adults are about 3.7 cm (1.5 in) in length. Females are rather drab, typically tan or brown with darker mottling. Males are larger than females, and turn bright blue and yellow during the breeding season. They also have larger dorsal and anal fins, which are used for display.

Salt Creek pupfish can reproduce several times a year, although their peak season is in the spring and the fall. When they're ready to mate, males will claim a small territory and vigorously defend it against rival males. Little is known about the physical aspects of their reproduction, but individuals typically live only a year or so.

C. salinus feed primarily on cyanobacteria and algae, and supplement their diets with available aquatic arthropods. Their only predator is the diving beetle Neoclypeodytes cinctellus, but their populations are also highly influenced by flooding and drought cycles. At the peak the rainy season, when flooding has increased habitat availability, the population of C. salinus can explode into the millions, but that number is then cut down to only several thousand when subsequent droughts dry up most pools and streams.

Conservation status: The Death Valley pupfish is considered Endangered by the IUCN. It has an extremely limited distribution, which is under threat from excessive draining of the aquifer that feeds their habitat.

Dr. Cynthia S. Shroba

Michael Hawk

The Devils Hole pupfish can only be found in the wild in one small but deep geothermal pool. When water levels dropped during the last ice age, this group was separated from other pupfish species and evolved independently in the limestone caves of Devils Hole.

Salt Creek, a seasonal creek and home to the very rare Death Valley pupfish.

Death Valley National Park, California

The only objectively correct answer is the Devil’s Hole Pupfish. Even if they look like gummy bears covered in sugar

These critically endangered little guys live only in one place that just so happens to be a National Monument. It’s under government protection as well as fenced off, constantly surveilled, and with decoy locations to throw off the scent.

So in the off-chance you do get to pop one of these suckers in your mouth… yeah, your days will be numbered.

But seriously, skim through the Conservation section of the wiki page this shit wild

You get a Devil’s Hole Pupfish

Devils Hole Pupfish