05

Death valley is the hottest and driest place in North America: less than 50mm of rain falls in an average year and summer temperatures of 50C are common. For this reason life abunds near the creek.
However salt creek is about as salty as the ocean - a toxic environment for most freshwater creatures. The gradual change from a freshwater lake to a salt creek was still a drastic one, and most of the animals disappeared. Birds stopped coming, mammals disappeared and frogs and most of the fish died. A few organisms adapted to the salt and are still here today. Only one kind of fish survived: the salt creek pupfish.