Death Valley Pupfish
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| Death Valley Pupfish | ||||||||||||||
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| Missing image Death_Valley_Pupfish_spawning_in_Salt_Creek.jpg Death Valley Pupfish spawning in Salt Creek Death Valley Pupfish spawning in Salt Creek | ||||||||||||||
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| Cyprinodon salinus | ||||||||||||||
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The Death Valley Pupfish (Cyprinodon salinus) is a species of fish that is the last known survivor of what is thought to have been an large ecosystem of fish species that lived in Lake Manly which dried up at the end of the last ice age leaving the present day Death Valley in California. The pupfish is adapted to the shallow, hot, salty water of a particular part of Salt Creek that flows above ground year-round. Another sub-species lives in nearby Cottonwood Marsh.
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Subspecies
- Salt Creek Pupfish (Cyprinodon salinus salinus)
- Found in Salt Creek in the central part of Death Valley.
- Cottonball Marsh Pupfish (Cyprinodon salinus milleri), threatened
- Found in Cottonball Marsh on the west side of central Death Valley.
Other Cyprinodons in the area
- Amargosa Pupfish (Cyprinodon nevadensis amargosa)
- Found in the Amargosa River northwest of Saratoga Springs.
- Saratoga Pupfish (Cyprinodon nevadensis nevadensis)
- Found at Saratoga Springs at the south end of Death Valley.
- Devil's Hole Pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis), endangered
- Found in Devil's Hole 37 miles east of Furnace Creek, in western Nevada.
Reference
- NPS: Fish in Death Valley (http://www.nps.gov/deva/pphtml/subanimals4.html)
- FishBase: Cyprinodon salinus salinus (http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.cfm?ID=3179&genusname=Cyprinodon&speciesname=salinus%20salinus)
External links
- Scientific paper on the genetics of Death Valley Pupfish (http://mbe.oupjournals.org/cgi/reprint/16/3/363)
- Scientific paper on the importance of groundwater to the Salt Creek Pupfish (http://www.jhu.edu/~eps/faculty/jahren/Jahren&Sanford2002.pdf)