Animals of the Great Lakes cope with the most extreme, unpredictable temperature changes on Earth - from summer highs of 40 degrees to winter lows of minus 40. This transformation creates mysteries and marvels of evolution, life uniquely adapted to change.

This land of wonder has weird and unique animal behaviours. The world’s largest mass spawning occurs near Lake Michigan. Wolves fish for white suckerfish to feed their pups. Massasauga Rattlesnakes swim between Lake Huron’s 30,000 islands to give birth to live young. A mother moose dives to the bottom of the lake to feed her calf.

A thirty-year-old female salamander, the world’s only ‘photosynthetic vertebrate’, makes an epic migration across snow near Lake Huron. In Lake Erie, colourful redside dace have evolved to catch insects in the air.  Parasitic mussels imitate minnows to lure their prey and biologists use innovative new science to battle invasive sea lamprey.

The adaptation of wildlife to successfully live and thrive in the Great Lakes watershed gives us hope about the future of the world’s greatest and most important freshwater ecosystem.