Sargassum Crab

Invertebrates > Crustaceans

The Sargassum Crab (Portunus sayi) is an extraordinary, highly specialized pelagic swimming crab that lives its entire life afloat in the open ocean aboard drifting mats of golden-brown Sargassum seaweed. An evolutionary marvel of camouflage, its shell mimics the...

Olympic Torrent Salamander

Amphibians > Salamanders & Newts

The Olympic Torrent Salamander (Rhyacotriton olympicus) is a primitive, cold-adapted amphibian found nowhere on Earth outside the mist-shrouded temperate rainforests of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. As the type species of the ancient North American family...

Clark’s Spiny Lizard

Reptiles > Lizards

Clark’s Spiny Lizard (Sceloporus clarkii) is a large, rugged, heavily armored arboreal lizard native to the oak-dotted canyons, riparian gallery forests, and desert ranges of the American Southwest and Mexico. Named in honor of American naturalist John H. Clark,...

Granite Night Lizard

Reptiles > Lizards

The Granite Night Lizard (Xantusia henshawi) is a master of extreme architectural crypsis, exquisitely adapted to a life spent entirely inside narrow cracks of exfoliating granite boulders in the mountains of Southern California. With its remarkably flattened,...

Yoyo Loach

Fish > Loaches

The Yoyo Loach (Botia almorhae), also celebrated as the Almora Loach, is an energetic, highly patterned freshwater fish native to the pristine mountain streams and river basins of northern India and Nepal. It earned its famous playful name because the bold black...