A rocky outcropping in the middle of the hottest place on Earth and the driest stretch of land in North America is hardly the place you’d expect to find fish.
But a group of tiny, shimmery fish frolic seemingly without a care in the famous Devils Hole in the Death Valley desert.
The narrow cavern is filled with shockingly clear water that’s regularly 93 degrees Fahrenheit with dangerously low oxygen levels. Indeed, the bottomless geothermal pool that gives the Devils Hole pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis) their name — plus some frisky mating behavior that resembles puppies playing — is the narrowest geographic range of any vertebrate. And with only 175 total fish at last count, they’re the rarest fish on the planet.
Cyprinodon macularius (Credit: /Getty Images
/Getty Images
But Earth has warmed 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900, and desert ecosystems that cover about 25 percent of the Earth’s surface are ...
