California Vernal Pools
a collection of information and resources

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Many of the plants and animals that occupy vernal pools can live nowhere else. They require the extremes of soggy winters and desiccating summers. Some can only live in vernal pools because they do not support fish or other ferocious predators. 

Common Vernal Pool Animals

• Vernal pool flowers and their specialist bee pollinators -- by Robbin Thorp, Professor Emeritus, UC Davis
   
• Mather Kids Web: Critter Cards -- a fifth grade curriculum about vernal pools by Sacramento Splash
   
• Great Valley Museum habitats: Vernal Pools -- photos of animals and plants of vernal pools in the San Joaquin Valley 

Rare Vernal Pool Animals  

• California Tiger Salamander -- Essex Environmental fact sheet (PDF)
   
• California Tiger Salamander listing petitions -- Center for Biological Diversity 
   
• Conservancy Fairy Shrimp -- US Fish and Wildlife Service 
   
• Delta Green Ground Beetle -- US Fish and Wildlife Service
   
• Friends of the Swainson's Hawk (FOSH)
   
• Longhorn Fairy Shrimp  -- Essex Environmental fact sheet (PDF)
   
• Midvalley Fairy Shrimp listing petition -- Center for Biological Diversity
   
• Vernal Pool Fairy Shrimp -- Endangered Species Information Network 
   
• Vernal Pool Fairy Shrimp -- Essex Environmental fact sheet (PDF)
   
• Vernal Pool Tadpole Shrimp -- US Fish and Wildlife Service
   
• Western Spadefoot Toad -- Essex Environmental fact sheet (PDF)

Common Vernal Pool Plants

• Plants of Mather Field -- a photographic flora of Mather Field, eastern Sacramento County. 
   
• Mather Kids Web: Flower Facts -- a fifth grade curriculum about vernal pools by Sacramento Splash
   
• Great Valley Museum habitats: Vernal Pools -- Photos of animals and plants of vernal pools in the San Joaquin Valley. 
    
• Jepson Prairie Wildflowers -- An interactive plant identification tutorial for the Jepson Prairie docent program. 
   

• Vernal Pools: A Vanishing Habitat -- By Dianne Fristrom and John Game, California Native Plant Society photo gallery

Rare Vernal Pool Plants

• Burke's Goldfields (Lasthenia burkei) -- US Fish and Wildlife Service

• Colusa Grass (Neostapfia colusana) -- US Fish and Wildlife Service

• Contra Costa Goldfields (Lasthenia conjugens) -- US Fish and Wildlife Service

• Greene's Tuctoria (Tuctoria greenei) -- US Fish and Wildlife Service

• Solano Grass (Tuctoria mucronata) -- US Fish and Wildlife Service

Endangered Species Information

• What is an Endangered Species? -- definitions and glossary related to endangered and threatened species
    
• EE Link -- Endangered Species -- great overview page on endangered species throughout the United States 

VernalPools.Org - dedicated to saving California's vernal pool landscapes