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They are puny, peculiar and strictly part-time the plants and animals that populate shallow ponds across California and southern Oregon, coming to life each winter and disappearing in summer. But with development drying up these vernal pools, they're also endangered.

Federal wildlife regulators on Thursday proposed a $2 billion plan to rescue a score of the uniquely adapted species and other critters of concern: oddities like nearly invisible shrimp, toads that doze underground for months and colorful wildflowers that form concentric bull's-eye rings around the ponds.