I attended the American Fisheries Society's national conference this past week and listened to a lot of interesting presentations. One of them was about the status of The Devil's Hole Pupfish. They're pretty much done for, seeing as how there are only 38 adult individuals left in Devil's Hole. And they're extremely difficult to maintain in aquaria and refugia, so the chances of boosting their numbers in captivity are also fairly low. It's kind of sad, but I think they've had a good run. They've been isolated for the last 20-100,000 years, just a relic of the last ice age, much like the Mojave Tui Chub.

That's kind of the line of thinking my evolution professor had when I was in school. A certain species will stick around for a while and then go away to be replaced by something else in that ecological niche. It's part of the natural environment to go through changes and continue to evolve. Only lately we as a species have been impacting that evolution in a an unnatural way. Kinda sad.

They aren't difficult at all to keep. Why, mine will eat...


Huh? Oh.



Never mind!