I LOVE PUPFISH

Hello Deathlings, 

As some of you may remember, a while ago I went on a little writing retreat to the middle of the desert. While I was out there I got a chance to explore one of the most inhospitable places on earth, Death Valley. To the naked eye, life resists in Death Valley. It's ungodly hot, bone dry, and most any water you find seems unlikely to sustain life. 

Most any water. 

Hello Devils Hole! 

While wandering Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, I expected to see some beautiful desert landscape. I expected to see some remarkable flora and fauna. I expected to be delighted by the animals that survive and thrive in the desert. 

But I did not expected to be CAPTIVATED by teeny, tiny, delicate fish. 

I am obsessed with the Devils Hole pupfish. Don't get me started on how I genuinely ADORABLE I find these fish. But more than that, they are a debate about death acceptance all rolled up into a few itty, bitty, big-eyed packages. 

I really hope you find them as intriguing as I do. Though maybe NOBODY, save for the pupfish's STAFF, find them as intriguing as I do – shout out to Kevin! 

So enjoy the video, deathlings. And if you're ever in Death Valley, I highly recommend visiting these lil' darlings before they maybe, hopefully not, but maybe swim off into that great watery cave in the sky. 

Stay safe out there! 

Caitlin 

*A quick, but important clarification: If you clicked on this post from your email, the subject probably read, "Caitlin Doughty's new patron-only video". This is not a patron-only video; this is a video that was released to the public. When we release patron-only videos we will explicitly state in the video info and in the video post that it is a "Patron Exclusive" video. Patreon recently changed the way Patrons-only video posts (i.e. these nifty messages that are delivered to your inbox) are released via email – automatically adding that "patron-only video" line to the subject, even if that's not the case. But that's not how we (and a lot of other creators) do things. So, sorry for the confusion! I hope this cleared things up! We're working on fixing this with Patreon.