In Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas, two park staff members stumbled upon a tiny plant they had never seen before.
It was nearly two years ago, in March 2024, when a volunteer with the park’s botany program and a supervisory interpretive park ranger noticed some “very tiny,” fuzzy plants sprinkled among desert rocks in a remote area of the park.
Once they realized it looked like something they had never seen before, they took some photos, and consulted species databases, herbarium records, plant taxonomy publications, and spoke with area experts to unearth what they may have found. They even posted photos online via iNaturalist to see if anyone else could identify the species.
Soon, it became clear that these tiny plants were a completely new discovery.
The first photo taken of the Wooly Devil. Photo by NPS / D. Manley
Together with park staff, researchers from the California Academy of Sciences, Sul Ross University, and Centro Interdisciplinario de Investigación para el Desarrollo Integral Regional recently published research on the new plant in the peer-reviewed botanical journal PhytoKeys.
Further investigations, including a formal scientific description of the plant and the results of a genetic analysis concluded that the plant is so distinctive that it is not just a new species, but is best classified as an entirely new genus within the Asteraceae, or daisy, family.
Once researchers confirmed the plant, which includes fuzzy leaves, and almost ribbon-like flowers, was a new species, they had to name it. Inspiration came from the plant’s appearance, and they landed on Ovicula biradiata.
Ovicula means “tiny sheep” and references the “thick white ‘wool’ that covers the leaves,” according to the National Park Service. Biradiata references “the two conspicuous ray petals in each flower.”
Researchers have affectionately called it the “wooly devil,” as a suggested “common name,” in reference to the fuzzy or wooly leaves of the plant, and its proximity to populations of the locality known as “Devil’s Den.” The ray florets in the plant also tend to resemble horns.
Examples of moderately sized wooly devils found occasionally throughout the known locations. Photos by Cathy Hoyt (A) & Deb Manley (B) on 2 March 2024 and James Bailey in April 2024
“Now that the species has been identified and named, there is a tremendous amount we have yet to learn about it,” Big Bend National Park Superintendent Anjna O’Connor said in a statement for NPS.
“I’m excited to discover whether there are other populations in the park, details of its life cycle, what are the pollinators, and due to the current drought, if it will be observed at all this spring.”
The Chihuahuan Desert, an area of the park where the plant was found, is the largest and most biologically diverse warm desert in North America. It is considered a microhabitat of Big Bend National Park, which is over 800,000 acres in size.
Park botanist C. Whiting takes a closer look at wooly devil. Photo by NPS/C. Hoyt
The wooly devil has, so far, only been found in this remote area of the park, and suggests that it is highly sensitive to variable weather patterns.
With the Chihuahuan Desert recently under severe drought conditions due to climate change, researchers have “preliminarily qualified” the wooly devil as a vulnerable species under a high threat of extinction, according to the study published in PhytoKeys.
While scientists will continue to research the plant and its surrounding area, its exact location has been obscured to protect it.
“The discovery of Ovicula biradiata underscores that the task of documenting and describing plant diversity is far from finished in the Chihuahuan Desert,” the researchers write in their conclusion.
“Furthermore, that discoveries are not limited to unexplored or unpopulated regions and that interest and purposeful attention may still reveal novelties in places such as national parks that might be considered ‘well-trodden’ or fully understood.”
In other words, even the most beloved and well-traveled public lands in the United States are still full of surprises.
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Header image: NPS / C. Hoyt
