User:Julypala/Death Valley pupfish

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Description

The Death Valley pupfish is a small, silvery colored fish with 6–9 dark bands on its sides. It has an average length of 3.7 cm (1.5 in), with a recorded maximum of 7.8 cm (3.1 in).

The males turn bright blue during mating season, April through October. The pupfish can withstand harsh conditions that would kill other fish: water that is 4 times more saline than the ocean, hot water up to 116 °F (47 °C), and cold water down to 32 °F (0 °C).

Conservation

The Death Valley pupfish has been classified as endangered by the IUCN because of 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.

Genetic Diversity

There have been studies related to starch gel electrophoretic patterns of tissue suggesting the genetic diversity between five closely related Death Valley pupfish species, which all have identical hemoglobin and myogen electropherograms. Heat-inactivation and inhibitor experiments point to polymorphism in a single species C. nevadensis. Studies also conclude that the species-specificity of esterases are correlated with adaptation to environmental parameters.

Lead
The Death Valley pupfish is a small, silvery colored fish with 6–9 vertical dark bands on its sides. It has an average length of 3.7 cm (1.5 in), with a recorded maximum of 7.8 cm (3.1 in). The males, often appearing in larger sizes compared to females, turn bright blue with gold fins during mating season, April through October. The females, along with premature pupfish, tend to have tanned backs with iridescent, silvery sides. Both males and females have plump bodies with rounded fins, a squashed head and an upturned mouth.

In Deep Springs Valley, an endemic toad species was introduced in 1939 and 1940 known as the Bufo exsul. After performing close studies, it was determined that no Salt Creek pupfish survived due to this introduction.

Article body
Description

The Death Valley pupfish is a small, silvery colored fish with 6–9 vertical dark bands on its sides. It has an average length of 3.7 cm (1.5 in), with a recorded maximum of 7.8 cm (3.1 in). The males, often appearing in larger sizes compared to females, turn bright blue with gold fins during mating season, April through October. The females, along with premature pupfish, tend to have tanned backs with iridescent, silvery sides. Both males and females have plump bodies with rounded fins, a squashed head and an upturned mouth. The pupfish can withstand harsh conditions that would kill other fish: water that is 4 times more saline than the ocean, hot water up to 116 °F (47 °C), and cold water down to 32 °F (0 °C).

Conservation

The Death Valley pupfish has been classified as endangered by the IUCN because of 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. In Deep Springs Valley, an endemic toad species was introduced in 1939 and 1940 known as the Bufo exsul. After performing close studies, it was determined that no Salt Creek pupfish survived due to this introduction.