For the Sapphires

Today we found a wetland in a desert! We are in a desert called Death Valley, which is mostly very dry, but it has a small wetland called Salt Creek. 

Salt Creek has prehistoric fish called Pup Fish. The water they live in is ultra salty and is only there from late Autumn to early Spring. The Pup Fish have to drink the water they swim in because it is too salty to absorb through the skin like other fish.

The Pup Fish are small, fast and manoeuvrable. They look like they are playing like puppies but they are really defending their territory, digging up food from the mud and mating. They can swim in water so shallow their fins stick out. 

Not many other things can live in the water. We saw algae in the water and insects and birds above it. The birds eat the fish and the insects. Coyotes and Sidewinder Rattlesnakes eat the birds. 

Most of the desert is stony and bare, but around the creek there was a tough plant called Picklebush.