Both the Turkmenian kulan and Persian onager are rated Endangered. This small toad is found in deserts and other dry habitats in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. It reaches lengths of around 3 inches 7. The red-spotted toad spends much of its time sheltering from the sun in rocky crevices near streams.
It is most often seen during periods of rainfall, when it emerges from its hiding place. The greater roadrunner is one of two species of roadrunner, the other being the lesser roadrunner Geococcyx velox , which is found in Mexico and Central America.
The two roadrunners are the only living members of the genus Geococcyx , which is part of the cuckoo family, Cuculidae. Although roadrunners can fly, they only do so as a last resort when evading predators — they spend most of the time on the ground, and are excellent runners. The greater roadrunner can run at speeds of up to 26 mph The Saharan silver ant has other adaptations for living in the desert: its long legs keep its body away from the hot sand, and it often walks using just four of its six legs, thereby minimizing the area in contact with the sand.
These adaptations are vitally important because the Saharan silver ant only emerges from its nest for around 10 minutes per day. The timing is crucial: it has to be hot enough so that ant-eating lizards are forced to seek shelter. The sand cat is a rarely-seen desert cat found in northern Africa and the Middle East.
It is smaller than a domestic cat, and has pale, sandy-colored hair, which is often marked with darker spots or stripes. The sand cat has large, pointed ears, and is thought to have hearing that is far more acute than that of a domestic cat. The sand cat is usually either nocturnal or crepuscular active at dawn or dusk. It is only active during the day in the coolest months of the year. Sandgrouses are birds in the family Pteroclidae. Most of the 16 members of this family are found either in deserts or other dry habitats.
These medium-sized, ground-dwelling birds are seed-eaters. Sandgrouses often congregate in large numbers around waterholes then disperse to forage for seeds either alone or in smaller groups. The sidewinder is a species of rattlesnake that inhabits desert regions in California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona. It is also found in northern Mexico. The sidewinder is also known as the horned rattlesnake due to the horn-like scales that project out from above its eyes. The sidewinder is venomous.
Its bite is extremely painful, but rarely life-threatening. Convergent evolution occurs when different types of animal develop similar characteristics or abilities due to their having the same type of lifestyle.
The marsupial mole, an Australian desert animal, is an example of convergent evolution. It looks and behaves very much like a true mole, but as a marsupial is only very distantly related to the animals from which it gets its name. This rat-sized desert marsupial lives in the hot, dry regions of inner Australia. It lives underground in tunnels, where it hunts earthworms and other invertebrates. The marsupial mole is blind, and probably uses a well-developed sense of smell to find its food.
One of the best known species of tarantula hawk wasp is Pepsis grossa. Its sting is said to be the second most painful in the insect world, after that of the infamous bullet ant. Although excruciatingly painful, the sting is short-lived and non-fatal to humans.
Pepsis grossa is found in the southern United States and Mexico. It uses its powerful sting to hunt tarantula spiders. The thorny devil is a small lizard found in dry regions throughout most of central and west Australia.
Its body and limbs are covered in rows of spines. This is displayed to deter potential predators. Using this adaptation, the lizard can drink from the dew that forms on its body overnight. Although a member of the family Hylidae the tree frog family , the water-holding frog lives on the ground. In fact, the species spends much of its life buried up to 1 meter 3. It only emerges after a period of heavy rain, when it makes its way to a swamp or waterhole in order to breed. During dry periods the water-holding frog is able to aestivate.
Aestivation is a state similar to hibernation, in which the frog becomes inactive in order to conserve energy. The water-holding frog is so-named because it stores water in its bladder when buried. Australian aborigines used to dig the frogs up as a source of water. The wild Bactrian camel is a critically endangered desert animal. It is closely related to the Bactrian camel, a domesticated species. Both Bactrian camels have two humps, but those of the wild Bactrian are smaller.
The species is also slightly smaller in overall size than its domestic relative. Only around wild Bactrian camels remain in the wild. Their numbers are decreasing. We hope that you have enjoyed meeting these desert animals. What is your favorite desert species? Have you seen any of these animals in the wild? Are there any other desert animals you think should be on this list?
The roadrunner has now been included! Lots of helpful info. Thanks a lot Reply. Helpful for my project! Animals adapt over eons to be perfectly suited to their natural environments. But compared to other habitats— the rainforest , the ocean , grasslands —the desert seems so uniquely hostile to life. If desert animals spend so much of their lives avoiding extreme heat in order to stay comfortable, it raises the question: Why live in the desert at all? Whether a species spread to the desert or the desert came to them they live and thrive there because they adapted to do so.
Although it may seem like desert animals try to avoid heat altogether, lots of animals actually need hot temperatures to thrive. If you picked them up and put them in what to us may seem like a much more pleasant environment, like a temperate forest, most would fare poorly. Gila monsters , for instance, prefer temperatures of around 84 degrees Fahrenheit. But the delicate balance of life in desert habitats is under threat as a result of prolonged drought and rapidly warming temperatures wrought by climate change.
All rights reserved. There are a lot of ways, it turns out, to cope with unrelenting desert heat. Here are ten photos of desert animals who live in some of the hottest places on Earth.
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Epic floods leave South Sudanese to face disease and starvation. Tambako the Jaguar. No discussion of desert survival is complete without a mention of the camel. You know that the hump stores fat, which can be used as both a food and water source for the animal when the going gets tough.
Camels also sport closable nostrils, a nictitating eye membrane, and wide feet that act like snowshoes in the sand. Greg Goebel. The Gila Monster—one of only two venomous lizards in the world—spends most of its life underground and can go months between meals by living off of fat stored in its tail. This is a handy little survival trick during the dry season in their Sonoran Desert habitat.
Tanya Durrant. As an added bonus, using cactus as a food source is a great way to supplement water intake as the spiny succulents are absolutely loaded with the stuff. This bird, found mainly in the deserts of Asia and North Africa, has specialized feathers on its belly that are able to soak up small quantities of water. Males of the species will use these feathers like a sponge to carry water back to their nests, which they then share with their female counterparts and offspring.
Marie Hale. Though they will drink water when it is available, this small species of North African antelope can get all of the water it needs from the food in its diet. The Namib Desert in Africa has very little fresh water to speak of, but due to its proximity to the sea, it receives a daily dose of fog in the cool hours of the early morning. Fogstand beetles have learned to stand still in order to let the fog condense on their bodies in the form of water droplets, which they then drink.
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