It’s one of the hottest, driest places on the planet, yet Death Valley is teaming with life. And some of that desert life may be surprising… like a species of fish that’s believed to have been around for at least 10,000 years.
Death Valley National Park is the only home of the Devils Hole pupfish, a little blue fish that lives in a water-filled canyon with no known bottom.
Devils Hole is a hot water aquifer that’s protected by a fence, security cameras, and both weather and water monitoring equipment that helps measure the critically-endangered species’ ecological well-being.
Once a year, divers descend into the hole to count pupfish. There were only 35 fish counted in 2013. In 2022, there are 263, “the highest population observed in the past 19 years.”
Megan Wollerton reports on this very rare fish, and the extraordinary actions being taken to protect it, in this CNET video from the summer of 2018: Saving endangered desert fish with tech.
Watch these desert and cave videos next:
• Superbloom: How Death Valley Springs to Life
• Sir David Attenborough visits the same exact plant 40 years apart
• How can glowing poop help bat conservation?
• Troglobites: Strange Cave Specialists
• New Zealand’s Waitomo Glowworm Caves in 4K
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