Death Valley pupfish
| Death Valley Pupfish | |
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| Male (right) and female (left) | |
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C. salinus
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| Cyprinodon salinus R. R. Miller, 1943
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The Death Valley pupfish (Cyprinodon salinus), also known as Salt Creek pupfish, is found in Death Valley National Park. There are two recognized subspecies: C. s. salinus and C. s. milleri. It is endemic to two small, isolated locations and currently classified as endangered.
Contents
Description
The desert pupfish is a small, silvery colored fish with 6-9 dark bands on its sides. It has an average length of 3.7 centimetres (1.5 in), with a recorded maximum of 7.8 centimetres (3.1 in).[2]
Distribution and habitat
This species is known from only two locations in Death Valley: Salt Creek (subspecies salinus) at about 49 meters below sea level, and Cottonball Marsh (subspecies milleri), at about 80 meters below sea level.[1] They are thought to be the remainders of a 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.[citation needed] The pupfish is adapted to shallow, hot, saline water with year-round above-ground flows, but tolerant of a very wide range of temperatures (0–40 °C (32–104 °F)).[1]
Conservation
The desrt pupfish has been classified as endangered by the IUCN due to its extremely restricted distribution (if the two extant locations were treated as a single unit, it would be considered critically endangered). Numbers of individuals at the locations are highly seasonally variable, and fluctuate with water level and flow volume. While the entire range of the species is located in a protected area, it may be under threat from accidental introduction of non-native species, local catastrophic events, and excessive pumping of the aquifer that feeds the habitat.[1]
See also
Other local Cyprinodons
- Tecopa Pupfish, Cyprinodon nevadensis calidae (extinct)
- Saratoga pupfish, Cyprinodon nevadensis nevadensis (subspecies)
Found at Saratoga Springs at the south end of Death Valley.
- Saratoga pupfish, Cyprinodon nevadensis nevadensis (subspecies)
- Amargosa pupfish, Cyprinodon nevadensis amargosa
Found in the Amargosa River northwest of Saratoga Springs. - Devil's Hole pupfish, Cyprinodon diabolis, critically endangered.
Found in Devil's Hole 37 miles (60 km) east of Furnace Creek, in western Nevada. - Shoshone Pupfish, Cyprinodon nevadensis shoshone
- Desert pupfish Cyprinodon macularius
- Owens pupfish Cyprinodon radiosus
References
Further reading
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External links
Media related to Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. at Wikimedia Commons- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- IUCN Red List endangered species
- Articles with unsourced statements from December 2015
- Pages containing citation needed template with deprecated parameters
- Cyprinodon
- Death Valley
- Fauna of the Mojave Desert
- Fish of the Western United States
- Endemic fauna of California
- Natural history of Inyo County, California
- Endangered fauna of California
