In sun-scorched expanse of Big Bend National Park, where the Chihuahuan Desert stretches seemingly endlessly, Deb Manley was lying on her stomach, peering at the ground. What she saw was no ordinary desert plant. Tiny, fuzzy, and crowned with maroon florets, it looked like something out of a fairy tale.
“I had never seen anything like it before,” said Manley, a volunteer with the park’s botany program. She snapped photos and uploaded them to iNaturalist, a citizen science platform, hoping someone might recognize the mysterious plant. But no one could.
What followed was a botanical detective story that led to a remarkable discovery. The plant was not just a new species but an entirely new genus. In fact, it was the first to be identified in an American national park in nearly half a century. Scientists have named it Ovicula biradiata, or the “wooly devil.”
A New Desert Plant
The wooly devil is a master of survival in one of the harshest environments on Earth. Measuring less than three inches (7.5 cm) across, it grows low to the ground. Its white, woolly leaves blend seamlessly with the desert gravel. And it blooms only after rain, a rare event in this arid landscape.
“Plants that thrive in deserts are often quite unique,” said Isaac Lichter Marck, an ecologist at the California Academy of Sciences and a co-author of the study. “They’ve evolved specific mechanisms to withstand extreme conditions — rapid life cycles triggered by rain, water-storing structures, and other adaptations.”
The wooly devil’s discovery is a great story about the scientific process. After Manley and a park ranger first spotted it in March 2023, they consulted herbarium records, plant taxonomy publications, and even DNA analysis to confirm its uniqueness. Genetic sequencing revealed that the plant is so distinct from its closest relatives that it warranted its own genus within the daisy family, Asteraceae.
Its name reflects its appearance: Ovicula means “tiny sheep,” a reference to the thick white fuzz covering its leaves, while biradiata refers to the two strap-shaped petals on each flower. For a more memorable moniker, researchers dubbed it the “wooly devil,” inspired by its horn-like petals and its discovery near a hiking area called Devil’s Den.
Newly Found, Already Almost Lost
Despite its desert resilience, the wooly devil faces an uncertain future. So far, researchers have found it in only three narrow locations in the park’s northern corner. Its highly specialized habitat — rocky, drought-prone soil — makes it vulnerable to climate change.
“As deserts become hotter and drier, highly specialized plants like the wooly devil face extinction,” Lichter Marck told USA Today. “We may have documented a species that is already on its way out.”
The plant’s fleeting appearances after rain make it even harder to study. “We don’t know if it will bloom this spring,” said Anjna O’Connor, superintendent of Big Bend National Park. “There’s so much we still need to learn — its life cycle, its pollinators, whether there are other populations in the park.”
Scientists are also intrigued by the plant’s potential medicinal properties. Under a microscope, they noticed glands similar to those found in other daisy family members, which are known to produce compounds with anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory effects.
“While further research is needed, this discovery underscores the potential knowledge we stand to gain from preserving plant diversity in fragile ecosystems,” said Keily Peralta, a study co-author.
Big Bend National Park, spanning over 800,000 acres, is a hotspot for biodiversity. Its varied habitats — from high-elevation woodlands to low desert bajadas — harbor countless species, many of which remain undiscovered.
The wooly devil is only the latest in a series of remarkable finds in the park. In recent years, scientists have uncovered fossils of a new duck-billed dinosaur and rediscovered a species of oak once thought extinct.
In the meantime, Deb Manley plans to keep exploring. You never know what she’ll find. The desert always has secrets to share.
The findings appeared in the journal PhytoKeys.
