It may seem silly to consider fish desert animals when they are always in the water, but in fact, desert fish are often very special! Desert pupfish are some of the coolest little fish in the desert!

Photo courtesy of Nancy Hadlock

• Pupfish can be found in many places throughout the country, but our desert pupfish are special because they live in such extreme environments.
• There are about 30 species of pupfish in the American Southwest.
• We are a type of spring fish, and many of the springs in the Mojave Desert have completely different species of pupfish that are all related!

• Perhaps the COOLEST thing about the desert pupfish is they evolved from the same or a very similar ancestor. Thousands of years ago in the Pleistocene, the Mojave was a much wetter place. As the large lakes dried up, there were small springs and pools left behind where some water still seeped from the ground. Various organisms were trapped in these pools that continuously got smaller. The pupfish that were stuck in these pools were evolutionarily selected and became the species we recognize today. Now, though many of these small springs still have pupfish, they can be very different from pupfish in other springs. Some of these pools have species or subspecies that live no where else on Earth making them endemic!

• Pupfish got their name because they seemed as playful as puppies.
• Female pupfish are grey but males can be bright blue during breeding season.
• Pupfish usually live 1 to 3 years.
• Natural pupfish predators include birds and flatworms.
• Introduced pupfish predators include bullfrogs and crayfish.
• Pupfish can be found along the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean coastlines. They are also found scattered throughout deserts in northern Mexico and the southwestern U.S.
• Pupfish live in temperature ranges from 0 to nearly 100°C (32°F to 212°F).
• Pupfish can live in water 3 times as salty as the ocean.
• The lifecycle of the pupfish depends on food availability.
• Pupfish have been around since the late Pleistocene, about 20,000 years ago!

• Several species of pupfish are endangered.
• Pupfish are famous! They were the first animal to be reviewed in the Supreme Court of the United States!
• They have made local and national news!

Size: We're about 5 cm (2 inches) long. About the size of your average pet goldfish.

Color: We can vary a lot in color, but generally we are grey, with the males being more blue in mating season.

Salt Creek and Saratoga Springs of Death Valley, along with Ash Meadows (outlined by the red box in the picture to the right) of the Amargosa Valley, just west of Pahrump, are the locations with some of the largest populations of desert pupfish.

Ash Meadows has a surprising number of springs and pools that host many species and subspecies of pupfish! Devil's Hole is one of these small, but very special aquatic habitats.

We are often dinner to other animals like birds and flatworms, but these animals rarely eat enough of us to impact our population numbers too much.

We do, however, have predators that have significantly lowered our population numbers recently. Introduced species like the bullfrog and crayfish eat large numbers of us, particularly our young. Rangers and biologists are always working to keep introduced species at bay.

Because desert pupfish are becoming so scarce, most of the research done on them centers around conservation. Scientists are working to increase population numbers and keep the different species isolated to prevent hybridization.

Here a diver investigates the caverns of Devil's Hole. Scientists have been working in Devil's Hole for decades, and the extent of the underwater features is still no where near clear!