Even though the tsunami warning for the 7.0 magnitude earthquake in California was eventually lifted on December 5, that doesn’t mean the quake didn’t trigger waves elsewhere. About 805 kilometers (500 miles) from the epicenter, in a cave that is part of Death Valley National Park, lives the critically endangered Devils Hole Pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis) saw his watery home change quickly and drastically.

Life in Devils Hole is usually pretty quiet; It is a geothermal pool at the bottom of a collapsed cave and is therefore protected from wind that might otherwise move it.

However, according to a statement from the National Park Service (NPS), the water in Devils Hole began shaking at around 10:46 a.m. local time – two minutes after the earthquake.

This created waves – called seiches when they occur within a closed body of water – that reached a height of almost 60 centimeters (24 inches). Their movement was enough to disrupt the main spawning area of ​​the Devils Hole Pupfish, an IUCN Red List Critically Endangered species found in the wild only in its namesake habitat.

While biologists from the NPS, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Nevada Department of Wildlife are still figuring out how the waves may have affected the fish, there have been some early suggestions.

“In the short term, this is bad for the fry,” said NPS biologist Dr. Kevin Wilson. “A lot of pupfish food just sank deeper into the cave, most likely too deep for the fish to get there. There were probably eggs from juvenile fish on the shelf that were destroyed.”

That may sound like a poor prognosis for the future of this endangered species, but Wilson explained that it’s not all bad news.

“(I)n the long term, this type of reset is good for the pup fish. It removed any decaying organic matter that might otherwise lead to oxygen-deficient pockets,” Wilson said.

This may be why the pupfish has survived and even increased in numbers following previous earthquakes, some caused by earthquakes as far away as Mexico and Alaska. In fact, a survey earlier this year found that spring season numbers of Devils Hole pupfish were at their highest in 25 years, and a population of 212 was most recently observed.

While the Devils Hole pupfish may be recovering from this recent seiche event, it still faces several threats, including from human activities and climate change.