Desert animals. Descriptions, names and characteristics of desert animals. Hazards, Natural Phenomena, and Desert Survival How Animals Get Water in the Sahara Desert

The interrelated problems of controlling heat and conserving water in the body confront all animals and plants in every part of every desert.

Sweating, puffing, throbbing, and licking—not to mention throwing out your entire supply of urine—are undeniably effective ways to cool off, but the desert dwellers who resort to them pay a heavy price. They are losing the greatest of treasures - water. All living organisms in the desert, both plants and animals, go to extremes to conserve moisture in the body. Their excrement is usually quite dry. Camel dung can be used as fuel almost immediately, and the excrement of many reptiles is a lump of a completely dry powder. Even to get rid of soluble slags, such as urea, water is used very sparingly. Thus, human urine contains 92% water, while kangaroo rats have only 70%. One of the Saharan lizards even manages to get rid of excess salt by secreting it through a special gland in the nostrils.

The search for water defines the lifestyle of many desert dwellers. Some have so reduced their need for it that they extract the moisture they need from their food, and do not drink at all. The fennec fox and the jackal get it from the tissues of their prey, the gazelle dorcas from the juice of the leaves, and the kangaroo rats from the seeds. Some people are able in critical situations to produce water inside their own body, breaking down fat reserves. But many large mammals, such as the oryx or kangaroo, are forced to travel daily from pastures to rare, far-flung sources, and then return back.

Desert birds often do the same. And during the mating season they find themselves in an extremely difficult situation, since the chicks need water no less than adults, and if the food is not juicy enough, they must be provided with liquid somehow else. African grouse often nest forty kilometers from the nearest water. And the male delivers drink to his chicks over such distances in a truly unique way. Arriving at the lake, he first drinks himself. And then he enters the water and stands, stretched out, diligently wetting the feathers on his abdomen. They - and only in males - have a structure not found in the plumage of any other bird, and absorb water like a sponge. As soon as they get water, the sandgrouse flies to its nest and sits on its edge. The chicks move towards him, their heads up, and begin to suck on feathers, like puppies tugging at their mother's nipples.

The earthen cuckoo, that graceful slayer of snakes that runs fast on long legs through the deserts of Arizona and Mexico, waters its chicks in a different way. The couple builds a nest in a cactus or thorn bush and hatches two or three chicks. Toddlers from an amazingly young age are already able to digest lizards and insects. Parents, arriving with a dead lizard to the nest, do not immediately give the prey to the chicks. The chick asks, opening its beak wide, and an adult bird sticks a lizard into it. But he doesn't let her go. And while they remain in this position, as if challenging each other's prey, liquid appears from the throat of an adult bird and flows down its beak into the beak of a chick. No, this is not water that has been recently drunk and preserved in the goiter. It is possible that there are no springs in the vicinity of the nest. This water is produced in the stomach of the parents during digestion. And only when the chick willy-nilly swallows the prescribed dose of water, he finally gets a lizard.

Desert plants also face the challenge of extracting water from a nearly waterless habitat. And few people solve it as successfully as the creosote bush in the deserts of the American Southwest. He does not rely on groundwater, which in many deserts is too deep, but on a thin film of moisture that dew, and in exceptional cases also raindrops, leaves on large grains of sand a few centimeters below the soil surface. The creosote bush collects it with a huge network of fine roots that penetrate the sandy soil so far and so densely that not a single molecule of water seems to escape them. Each shrub needs a large area for a sufficient supply of water, and once it takes root in a really dry place, it collects water so efficiently that no other plant can exist even a few steps away from it. And this applies not only to plants of other species, but also to his own seedlings. Therefore, each shrub develops the adjacent land, not with the help of seeds, but by throwing out new stems, which receive moisture from a slowly expanding network of roots. As the bush grows, the stems in the middle die off, and the bush takes on the shape of a ring. Encountering no competition, it continues to grow outward, and the ring gets bigger and bigger. There are bushes with a diameter of 25 meters. The stems in such rings themselves are not so old, but if we consider the bush as a single organism, it turns out that it has grown and expanded in this place for ten to twelve thousand years. In other words, the creosote bush is the oldest living organism on Earth.

Other desert plants have developed other ways to provide themselves with water. Unlike the creosote bush, they do not collect moisture in microscopic portions, but almost continuously, but rely on showers that hit the desert once a year to store moisture as quickly and as much as possible. Cacti specialize in this first of all. There are about two thousand species of them in the world, and all terrestrial ones are natives of both Americas. The largest is the cereus, which grows up to 15 meters in height, either in the form of a column, or throwing up several almost vertical fingers. Furrows resembling corrugation stretch along its entire length. When it starts to rain, the cereus sucks up rainwater from the swollen soil: its folds straighten out, and it noticeably increases in volume. During the day, a large cereus is able to absorb a ton of water. Now it's up to him to save her.

Here the main enemy is evaporation. Water vapor is inevitably lost through the stomata in the leaves, and therefore many plants in the dry heat of the desert have very small leaves with relatively few stomata - in this they are similar to plants in the far north, which have to endure drought caused by frost. Cereus and other cacti went further - their leaves turned into thorns. And the stomata developed on a swollen trunk, which turned green and took over photosynthesis. The role of thorns is by no means limited to protecting cacti from grazing herbivores, which are generally very few in these parts. The spines retard air currents, so that the cereus is, as it were, dressed in an invisible shell of still air. The stomata are also sheltered from random breezes by the fact that they are located at the bottom of the furrows - exactly like on pine needles. To top it all off, cacti, thanks to a special chemical process, absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen at night when it's cool, and during the day they keep their stomata closed most of the time. Thus, the cereus reduced the loss of water through evaporation to a minimum, conserving its reserves from year to year and spending them on the development of new tissue, until the downpour rages again, giving it an opportunity to fill its huge reservoirs.

A thirsty traveler in the kingdom of cereus can easily succumb to the temptation and drink from the huge cisterns surrounding him. This would be extremely unwise. Cereus juice contains a strong poison, and the case can end in death. However, not all water-storing plants are so unwelcome. As a matter of fact, both the natives in Central Australia and the Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert extract water from plants with the onset of drought. These desert dwellers are accomplished botanists and outdo university degree holders. One day in Central Australia I accompanied an Aboriginal companion of mine who went in search of water. He walked quickly and confidently, not turning his head from side to side, as I did, but even as if he did not even look at the ground under his feet. It seemed that at one glance he determined and remembered the tiny, half-erased footprints in the sand, and the shape of the stones, and the features of the stems, and the shape of the leaves. Then, without hesitation, he knelt before a low, stunted stalk with two drooping leaves. To me, this squirrel seemed exactly the same as the dozens of stems we passed by. But my companion clearly saw something special in him. With quick, precise strokes of the stick, he dug a hole about thirty centimeters deep around the stem. There, suddenly, a round rhizome the size of a soccer ball was discovered. Breaking off pieces, we squeezed streams of liquid into our mouths. It was enough to quench my thirst. And enough to save our lives.

Bushmen of the Kalahari in southwestern Africa find aquifers with the same accuracy. There are several of these plants, but the water in them is not equally pleasant. The liquid in some is so bitter that it is impossible to drink, but the Bushmen also find use for it, wiping and moisturizing the face and body.

Apparently, of all the people in the world, only the Bushmen have developed a physical feature that contributes to survival in the desert. In the body of each person, food reserves are stored in the form of fat. But the fat layer that surrounds the stomach and certain parts of the arms and legs is very unfavorable in the desert. It prevents the release of excess heat through the skin, and the traveler, whose muscles generate heat in motion, is in a difficult position. But many Bushmen, and especially Bushwomen, are spared such hardships, because their fat is deposited mainly in the buttocks, which as a result become very bulging, in sharp contrast to the general leanness and harmony of their figures. To the unaccustomed eye, such a physique seems somewhat caricatured, although any portly, sweating person of a different race traveling through the Bushman desert can only bitterly envy him.

The interrelated problems of controlling heat and conserving water in the body confront all animals and plants in every part of every desert. However, the deserts themselves are by no means the same. Some of their areas are characterized by specific difficulties or, conversely, resources that are overcome or used in equally specific, albeit diverse ways.

David Attenborough. LIVING PLANET. PUBLISHING HOUSE “MIR”. Moscow 1988

Life in the desert December 8th, 2014

Life in the desert is not easy. In addition to the arid climate and lack of water, its inhabitants have to adapt to very large diurnal temperature fluctuations: during the day it rises above 40 ° C, and at night it drops below zero. But, despite all these difficulties, thousands of animals live in deserts with different climatic features.

Let's take a look at these features...

For example, the Sahara, the most famous of all deserts, consists of many dunes and oases lost between them. The deserts of the southwestern United States have clay soil, and cacti predominate among the vegetation. Desert dwellers such as foxes, bats, snakes, and rodents have evolved curious physiological and behavioral mechanisms to survive in such harsh conditions. For example, they only leave their burrows at night when temperatures drop.

When it gets too hot and the vegetation gets too dry, some animals, such as ground squirrels that live in the deserts of Mexico and the United States, go into a hibernation similar to that of animals that inhabit the cold regions of the planet. Turkey vultures, for example, urinate on their own paws to cool themselves off. When a liquid evaporates, it takes some heat with it.

This is also the reason why many desert mammals lick their paws. Also, the inhabitants of the desert have developed mechanisms that contribute to survival in conditions of water scarcity. Many of them, especially cacti, are able to absorb the entire required volume of liquid from food.

When living in such conditions, every drop counts. For example, desert kangaroo rats live in underground burrows with no way out. It creates a microclimate favorable for life. The moisture exhaled together with the air does not leave the hole, and animals can use it, thanks to the special shape of the nasal sinuses.

Cooling through the ears

The black-tailed hare, also called the California hare, uses its disproportionately large and vascularized ears to generate heat while resting in the shade. The size of the ears, even among representatives of the same species living in regions with different temperatures, will be different.

Recirculation of urine in the body

On the one hand, desert kangaroo rats, the same small rodents as mice, live in underground burrows, which is already a kind of protection from the harsh desert climate. And on the other hand, they have another means of survival - their kidneys are very efficient, they contain microscopic tubes that extract most of the water present in the urine, causing the water to return to the body.

Ability to save water

The California Ground Cuckoo is one of the most famous animals of the American deserts. This bird can adsorb water contained in the stool before defecation. In addition, excess salt in her body is eliminated with the help of the nasal glands, and not through the excretion of urine, as most other animals do. This contributes to the preservation of precious fluid in the body.

Miracle- fish

It's hard to believe, but there is a fish that can live in the desert. One of these rare cases is the desert tooth carp, a colorful 6 cm long goldfish that lives in springs and hot water ponds. As winter approaches and the water gets colder, this fish hibernates by burrowing into the bottom of the pond until early spring.

fast running lizard

Desert lizards remain active even during the hottest part of the day. To reduce contact with hot ground, which can be over 60°C, they move at high speed. So, the collared desert iguana has a rare ability for this type of reptile, it stands on two hind legs and runs only on them.

Twice protected animal

The desert western gopher is able to withstand higher temperatures due to its ability to dig holes and hide in them. Representatives of this species spend up to 95% of their lives in these burrows. In addition, these animals do not tolerate cold well and go into a kind of hibernation during the winter season. At the same time, all physiological mechanisms work more slowly, saving energy.

The absence of clouds over deserts has two consequences. Their land not only does not receive rain, but during the day is deprived of any protection from the sun's rays, and at night - a cover that prevents the loss of heat. Let the desert be hot during the day - at night the temperature can drop below zero. Such huge fluctuations in living conditions over the course of one day subject animals that have chosen the desert as their home to severe trials.

Many find the simplest way out and hide from both the highest and lowest temperatures. Small mammals during the day hide in the darkness of minks and under stones. In these shelters it is much cooler than under the scorching sun, the humidity, partly due to the respiration of the inhabitants, is several times higher than outside, and therefore the animals lose noticeably less moisture. They spend a significant part of the day in their shelters and leave them when the sun disappears below the horizon.

In the Sahara, it is barely getting dark, gerbils and jerboas that look like mice timidly come to the surface. These are vegetarians. The tufts of grass there are few and rarely scattered, but they are still there, albeit stunted. And the wind brings seeds, leaves and twigs from greener areas there, so these little ones have something to eat. Geckos scurry over the cooling rocks in search of bugs and other insects. Fenechs, miniature foxes, pricking up their huge triangular ears, run silently among the stones. With their noses lowered to the ground, they catch smells that can tell when, who and where passed here. The trail leads to a gerbil. A jump - and the fennec fox ate for the first time in a day, and the gerbil will never have to eat again. As if out of nowhere, caracals, felines, and striped hyenas appear, and wolves are also found in the deserts of the Middle East, which are noticeably smaller than their northern relatives and are dressed in lighter and not very thick wool. The deserts of the New World also have their vegetarians and their carnivores: kangaroo rats hopping for seeds, and pygmy foxes and coyotes hunt them.

After the first hunger is satisfied, activity noticeably freezes. The temperature continues to drop. Geckos, losing body heat, climb into crevices. Mammals that produce their own heat can continue to search for seeds and hunt even when the night turns very cold, but they return to their dens and burrows long before dawn.

As the sun emerges from the eastern horizon, other groups of animals appear. In the deserts of the American West at this hour, gila-tooths come out to hunt. Except for their close relatives, the Mexican escarpions, they are the only venomous lizards in the world. They are about a third of a meter long with a thick, relatively short tail and are dressed in shiny, beady scales that are coral-pink and black. At dawn, the movements of gila-tooths are slow, but as the sun warms their body, they become more and more mobile - they grab insects, bird eggs and chicks. The gila-tooth can climb into the nest of desert mice and devour not only cubs, but also adults. In Australia, a small lizard Moloch crawls out to eat ants: it settles near some ant path and collects them over and over again with a lightning movement of the tongue, and the ants go on and on, not noticing anything. In the deserts, tortoises crawl out of pits and holes everywhere, sleeping quietly there under the protection of their shells.

But this explosion of activity does not last long. The sun rises higher, and the desert again turns into a blazing inferno. Overheating is no less dangerous for reptiles than for mammals, and four or five hours after dawn, the heat becomes unbearable for them too. A hot haze hovers over the stones. They burn the hand of a person who inadvertently touches them. The air is so dry and hot that a person does not even notice that he is sweating - sweat evaporates so quickly. If he remains in the open air all day without water, death awaits him. Even slight muscle movement generates heat. And now no one moves, unless he is forced to do so. And the sun pours and pours merciless heat from the hot sky.

Heat is dangerous for plants in the same way as for animals. And they die of thirst if the evaporation takes too much water from them. In the American deserts, defontenia prickly grows in places where there is not the slightest shadow. She has adapted to reduce the amount of sunlight falling on her due to the fact that her narrow leaves are turned at an angle of 70 ° to the vertical, and most of the day the sun's rays fall only on their edges. Only in the morning, when the air is still cool, and the sun is low on the horizon, does its rays fall on the leaf plate, supplying them with the necessary energy for photosynthesis. In addition, defontenia leaves secrete salt, which the roots absorb from the soil. The sap delivers salt to the leaves, and it coats their surface with a fine crystalline powder that reflects some of the heat rays like white clothes.

Some animals still remain on the surface and under the midday sun. In the Kalahari, earth squirrels turn their fluffy tail into a solar umbrella: they bend it over their heads, fluffing their hair, and turn it so that the body remains in the shade all the time. Other animals cool their bodies with radiators. Desert hares in America, one of the hedgehogs in the Gobi desert, and a bandicoot in Australia all use the same adaptation as the fennec fox in the Sahara: big ears. Undoubtedly, large ears help to capture every sound in the desert, but they all have ears too big for acoustic needs alone. Very close to the surface of the skin and in front and behind them, a network of tiny blood vessels penetrates, and the wind blowing over these ears cools the blood washing them.

The desert is not the most favorable atmosphere for living organisms. But, despite this, there is an amazing diversity of the animal world. During the midday heat, this diversity is almost invisible.

You can meet only a few or, and with great luck, several. But with the advent of evening twilight, when the heat gradually subsides, a new life begins in the desert, it seems to come to life.

Pictured reed cat

puma

This widespread desert animal is the second largest of the cat family. It has so many other names that it was even included in the Guinness Book of Records in this regard.

Most often they are also called mountain lions and. This slender and agile animal reaches a length of 100 to 180 cm, and weighs from 50 to 100 kg. Males are usually larger than females.

Dawn and dusk are chosen by the cougar for hunting. He likes to be in places with dense vegetation, in caves, rocky crevices. But it can also live in open areas. When hunting, it prefers to wait for its prey in ambush.

Animals avoid meeting people, but more than one case of cougar attacks on people has recently been seen. Hoofed animals are considered the favorite prey of cougars. They can also eat pets if they get into places inhabited by people. Compete with, and wolves.

puma animal

Coyote

This is the name of lonely predators that howl at the moon and are symbolic animals of the American wild West. They are not always lonely. There were cases when they hunted in whole flocks.

The length of the animal is from 75 to 100 cm, its weight is from 7 to 20 kg. They are active at night. They are able to adapt to any environment. They feed mainly on small mammals, carrion, deer and sheep. As soon as dusk falls, coyotes set off in search of prey for themselves.

As for coyotes and people, it was people who caused their spread. Coyotes compete with wolves, which people have recently begun to massively destroy.

Thus, it was people who created favorable conditions for the expansion of the range of coyotes. Their fur is highly valued in the fur industry, so these wild predators are always hunted.

These animals are an immediate, direct threat to farm animals, they are very fond of sheep. For this, they earned great dislike among the farmers.

But all attempts to destroy them do not bring great success because coyotes have insight, amazing intelligence and cunning. They avoid traps without any problems, avoiding bullets and various baits. The burrows of these animals are found in caves, rock crevices, in hollows of trees.

animal coyote

Tiger

This majestic animal is the largest and largest of all felines. The length of an adult male animal can reach up to 3.5 m, and weight 315 kg. For a hungry tiger, everything that catches his eye is suitable for food.

Dorcas gazelle

sacred scarab

This representative of the dung beetles is listed in the Red. The beetle is black in color, with a small body length - 4 cm, it is smooth to the touch and convex. The lower leg of males is somewhat different from the lower leg of females due to the fringe of golden hairs. Scarabs live on sea coasts and sandy soil.

Their food is cattle dung. They can stock up on this manure for the future, rolling it into balls, sometimes even more than themselves. They do not live long, about two years.

In ancient Egypt, this beetle is sacred. It is believed that a talisman with his image brings women eternal youth, and helps men earn good money.

sacred scarab beetle

Addax

This animal belongs to horse mammals, changes the color of its coat depending on the seasons. In the summer, the addax is white in color, while in winter it darkens to brown tones.

The animal lives closer to fresh waters. It eats desert grass and bush plants. In order to find their own food, addaxes can travel considerable distances. For some time they can be without water. The necessary moisture is obtained from plants.

These social animals prefer to live in herds, in which there are up to 20 or more heads, headed by a male. Addaxes make poor runners, making them prey for many predatory beasts.

Pictured animal addax

yellow scorpion

In another way, it is also called a deadly hunter. This creature is really very dangerous for a person and brings death or paralysis. The body of a scorpion reaches from 8 to 13 cm. Males are usually smaller than females.

They weigh 2-3 g. Their decoration is a long, slightly thickened and raised tail. The insect feeds on zofobas, and. In food, they are more picky than all their steel relatives.

For dwellings, territories under stones and small gorges are chosen. They live without problems in sandy burrows dug out on their own. From a bite of a yellow scorpion, small insects die immediately, and a person develops cerebral edema or paralysis. This property of insect venoms has recently become increasingly helpful in the treatment of cancer.

yellow scorpion

African ostrich

This largest bird can reach impressive sizes. The growth of this majestic bird can be up to 2.7 m, and the weight is 160 kg. Not only this attracts everyone's attention.

Pictured is a monitor lizard

Tropical desert animals

Tropical deserts have a complex, hot and dry climate. But for many animals this is not a global problem. They can adapt to any environment.

Tropical desert animals for a long time they can be without food, and also travel long distances in search of it. Many of them, in order to avoid the effects of intense heat, simply hibernate for a while.

For some of them, life underground is their salvation. Those who are not able to withstand all the severity of the climate of tropical deserts in the summer simply leave the hot regions.

Hyena

Open desert spaces, forest edges next to paths and roads are the places where you can most often meet this interesting animal. For many, it is a negative animal, except for negative emotions, it does not cause anything else.

This is how people treat her, who think that she eats carrion and is dangerous for many innocent animals. In fact, the hyena does not have much more anger and deceit than some other predatory representative of the tropical desert.

More recently, it was believed that hyenas are more related to dogs. But later it was concluded that they belong to felines. Hyenas are enemies. Skirmishes often occur between them, which end in victory for the pack in which there are more individuals.

Animals make scary, frightening people and at the present time, sounds. Hyenas often lose their food because of their laughter. Or rather, the provisions are taken from them by lions, who, by the sounds of the animal, understand that there is a lot of food next to them. They are mainly nocturnal, during the day they rest from long hikes or hunting.

They cannot be considered ugly and insensitive animals. The fact that hyenas eat carrion gives them the right to be called real orderlies of the environment. With pleasure they hunt all hoofed animals, and they can also covet the babies of large animals.

hyena animal

Cheetahs

A beautiful and majestic feline predator has an incredible color, huge claws. He develops unprecedented speed and with all his appearance makes himself respected.

The length of its adult individual reaches up to 150 cm, and cheetahs weigh an average of 50 kg. They have excellent eyesight, which helps them to hunt well. They are the fastest animals.

For life, open areas are chosen to a greater extent, avoiding thickets. They prefer to hunt during the daytime, which is very different from most predators that hunt at night. They don't like to climb trees.

Pictured is a cheetah

Jerboa

Mammals from the order of rodents live almost everywhere due to their excellent ability to adapt. These animals are only small in size. They have a long tail, longer than the body itself.

Thanks to their well-developed hind legs, they run very fast, while the tail serves as a kind of steering wheel for them. In winter, they go into hibernation.

Jerboas lead a more active lifestyle at night. In search of provisions, they can overcome about 5 km. During the day after these trips, the animals sleep off.

For dwellings, jerboas dig holes for themselves. They eat plant foods - fruits, vegetables, root crops, grains. Do not refuse to eat larvae, insects and.

animal jerboa

Arctic desert animals

To a greater extent, birds predominate in the Arctic deserts than animals. It is easier for them to endure all the severity of those places. But there are also animals and fish, although there are not so many of them.

The Bears

- This is the brightest representative of the northern latitudes. It is the largest animal after, and. The appearance of this white predator differs little from the appearance of its brown relative. The body length of polar bears reaches up to 3 meters, and sometimes they weigh more than a ton.

Favorite habitat arctic deserts and. This animal can survive such harsh winters due to the large accumulation of fat, which protects them from frost and the special structure of the coat. They walk smoothly, slowly and swaying from side to side.

They have no fear towards humans. It is better for people to stay away from this giant. Animals prefer to lead a solitary lifestyle. Between themselves, they live mostly amicably, but it happens that skirmishes arise between them, which most often occur during the marriage period.

Bears swim and dive very well. It is in the water that they get their food. Their victims are, sea hares,. The victim is searched for with the help of a well-developed sense of smell.

These animals are resourceful. If they have an abundance of food, they will definitely hide it in reserve. Fathers have absolutely no parental feelings. Not only do they not help in raising their kids, but sometimes they can even pose a threat to them.

polar bear

Seals and walruses

These animals are most popular in the arctic deserts. They are separate populations. Seals have a large number of subspecies. Sea hares are the largest and most dangerous of them all. The seal is the smallest and most mobile representative of these inhabitants of the Arctic deserts.

Walruses are considered the closest relatives of seals, and also pose a great danger to them. Their sizes are much larger, fangs are sharper. Walruses feed on small animals, including a moderately well-fed seal.

Animals of the deserts of South America

In the deserts of South America, you can find quite unique and diverse animals. Each of them is interesting in its own way.

Battleship

This mammal with a back-covering shell is small in size. The body length of the armadillo of the desert reaches 12-16 cm, and the weight is 90 g. They prefer sandy plains.

They burrow into this soil and look for food there. They feed on worms, snails and vegetation. They are not social animals and prefer to live alone. They sleep during the day and forage for food at night.

Pictured is an armadillo animal

Guanaco

They are considered the largest of all desert herbivores. In food, they are not picky. Moisture is obtained from plant products. With its slender and light physique, it is very reminiscent of deer or antelopes.

A distinctive feature of these animals, which is immediately noticed, is their large eyes with long eyelashes. At night, the guanaco is reserved for rest. At dawn, they wake up. In the morning and in the evening they go to the watering place every day. They live in herds, in which there are many females and children and one male.

Pictured is a guanaco

Jaguarundi

The cat family has many interesting representatives. One of them is . Its close relative is the cougar. For habitat, they choose dense forests, thickets of shrubs, through which they make their way without much difficulty due to their flexibility. They do not like to climb trees. This happens only in extreme cases, out of great necessity.

This cat eats various animals for food, including domestic ones. During the mating season, cats form pairs. Against this background, there are frequent fights without rules, for one female that two males like. Jaguarundi females are wonderful and caring mothers.

Without food, a person can live relatively quietly for several weeks, and without water - only a couple of days. Therefore, the search for drinking water is one of the most important tasks of a lost tourist. However, there are areas where this is, if not impossible, then extremely difficult. We are talking, of course, about deserts. The main characteristic of deserts is an extremely low amount of precipitation: no more than 200 mm per year. Therefore, the living organisms that live there are forced to exist in conditions that imply the need for austerity of water. Many desert mammals never drink; they get enough moisture from plants or other animals. A special problem is the temperature difference - if at noon you can fry eggs on the stones, then at midnight you can easily freeze. This, of course, does not make the already difficult task of survival any easier. But with certain knowledge, even in such conditions it is possible.

How to get water? Finding water in the desert comes down to the following options…

Natural water sources in the desert

Even a small child knows that sometimes oases occur in deserts - places where groundwater comes very close to the surface. If you are lucky enough to find such an oasis, consider there are no more problems. There you will find not only water, but also quite plentiful food. And if you consider that the local population also regularly uses oases during their wanderings, then you will most likely be found and assisted quite quickly. Also, one should not forget about periodically drying up small rivers. Even if you find only a dry bed, do not despair. There is a high probability that, having dug up the packed sand to a depth of several meters, you will still find at least a little saving liquid. The main difficulty is finding these sources. Here you can give some advice. Keep an eye out for birds and insects, especially mosquitoes - their presence clearly indicates that there is water somewhere nearby. Look for paths trodden by animals - local mammals may well lead you to the source. Keep an eye on the structure of the sand - a dry bed is fairly easy to find if you look closely. And do not forget to boil the water drawn from natural sources.

Artificial springs - wells

People live in the desert. And these people also want to drink. And they, unlike you, walk around these inhospitable places all their lives. They go and dig wells. These are the wells you need to look for. The easiest way is to find a trodden path. This is not difficult, as the local population roams with their herds, and the herd leaves a perfectly visible mark. In some areas, wells are marked on local maps, so try to get one in advance - you never know, it might come in handy. But even if you found a well, the problems still do not end there. Sometimes they simply do not have a bucket with a rope, and the depth reaches up to a hundred meters. Ingenuity and the ability to make a long rope from improvised materials will come to the rescue - laces, bandages, patches of clothing, fresh roots of various desert plants.

Do-it-yourself digging of wells

To be honest, it's an option. The main reason is that you never know where it really makes sense to dig. Even a dry bed is not always suitable - the water could go so deep that it is impossible to get to it. Plus, hard physical work stimulates sweating, which means it increases fluid loss. Therefore, the following conditions must be observed - work only in the early morning or evening, when there is no risk of getting a heat stroke, dig only in those places where there is a high chance of success - dried up riverbeds and areas with abundant desert vegetation, it is desirable to strengthen the walls of the well, or dig like this called "stepped" pits. But you shouldn’t really hope for success - as practice shows, out of 10 dug wells, only one turns out to be “working”.

Evaporation and condensation

Knowing the simplest laws of physics is sometimes very useful for survival. Even though the air is very dry, there is still moisture there. And in the morning, when the temperature changes, you can regularly observe dew. This dew must be collected. The following is done - a rather deep hole is dug in the sand, a container for collecting water is placed in the center of it, and everything is covered with plastic wrap on top, the edges of which are sprinkled with sand. A small pebble is placed in the center of the film to give it the shape of a cone - this will allow the condensate to drain exactly into the collection container. And then - wait. You won’t get a lot of water, of course, but even a small amount of it can be a salvation.

The second option is to evaporate water from local plants. Anything will do - preferably with green leaves. But even a dry camel thorn will do, although it will be much less useful. So, a plastic bag is taken and stretched over a suitable bush or tree (better with - so it will always be under the sun). Due to the greenhouse effect, water begins to evaporate and settle on the walls of the bag, flowing down to the bottom. There is another option - more "barbaric". With it, the plants are stupidly cut off and stuffed into a bag - then everything works in exactly the same way.

Desert plants and inhabitants

Some desert plants have learned to store water in their trunks and leaves. If you make a small hole in the trunk of a date palm or baobab, a clear liquid will flow from there, which is suitable for drinking. If you find a cactus, things are a little more complicated. You need to chop it into pieces and gently squeeze them out - it is better to drink the resulting juice in small quantities, as it sometimes causes aggravating dehydration. The local fauna can also help, although few people like to drink, say, the blood of a jerboa or something larger. But if you really want to stay alive, then you can even go for it. Sometimes you even have to drink your own urine. The method is nasty, but quite effective. The main thing is to remember a few rules. It is desirable to pass urine through at least the simplest filter - this is the time. And two - it can only be done once. It's just that when reprocessing, the concentration of ammonia and other harmful substances in the urine begins to exceed safe limits.

Finding water in the desert is extremely difficult - something will constantly interfere with you. But if you do everything right and do not panic, then even from such an unpleasant situation you can find a way out. Just remember that the local population has been surviving in these conditions for centuries. And if they succeed, then you will succeed, especially if you are armed with the necessary knowledge and determination to survive at all costs.

Unbearable heat during the day, very cold at night. Around only dried earth, sands or cracked stones. Not a single green tree nearby. Instead of trees, dry trunks or "rocking" bushes. How does the desert live? Or rather, how do plants and animals survive in these harsh desert conditions?

In nature, there are areas where there is no or almost no vegetation, as well as very few animals. Such natural areas are called deserts. They are found on all continents of the globe and occupy about 11% of the land surface (about 16.5 million sq. km).

A prerequisite for the formation of a desert on the surface of the earth is the uneven distribution of heat and moisture. Deserts form where there is little rainfall and dry winds prevail. Many are located near or already surrounded by mountains, which prevent precipitation.

The desert is characterized by:

• - Dryness. The amount of precipitation per year is approximately 100-200 mm, and somewhere they do not happen for decades. Often, even these small precipitations, evaporating, do not have time to reach the surface of the earth. And those precious drops that have fallen into the soil will replenish groundwater supplies;
• - Winds arising from excessive heating and associated air currents that reach 15 - 20 m/s or more;
• - The temperature, which depends on where the desert is located.

Desert climate

The climate in Putin is influenced by geographical location. There can be either warm or dry climate. When the air is dry, it practically does not protect the surface from solar radiation. During the day, the air warms up to + 50 ° C, and quickly cools down at night. During the day, the sun's rays, not lingering in the air, quickly reach the surface and heat it up. Due to the lack of water, there is no heat transfer, which is why it is so hot during the day. And at night it is cold for the same reason - the lack of moisture. There is no water in the soil, so there are no clouds to hold heat. If the daily temperature fluctuations of the desert of the tropical zone are 30-40 ° C, then the temperate zone is 20 ° C. The latter are characterized by hot summers and cold winters (up to -50 ° C with light snow cover).

Desert flora and fauna

Few plants and animals can live in such difficult climatic conditions. They are characterized by:

• - Long roots to get moisture in the deep layers of the soil;
• - Small hard leaves, and in some they are replaced by needles. All for less evaporation of moisture.

Desert dwellers change depending on the location of the desert. Wormwood, saxaul, saltwort, grate, juzgun are characteristic of the temperate desert; succulents (cacti) are added to the subtropical and tropical deserts of Africa and Arabia. A lot of light, poor soil, lack of a lot of water - all that cacti need. Cacti have adapted perfectly: thorns do not allow excessive waste of moisture, a developed root system collects morning dew and night soil moisture.

The deserts of North America and Australia are much richer and more diverse (dwarf acacia, eucalyptus, quinoa, prutnyak, etc.). In oases, large river valleys of the temperate zone of Asia, trees grow: jida, willow, elm, turanga poplar; in subtropical and tropical - evergreen palm, oleander. And this small list is very valuable in the desert. Plants serve as food for camels, for heating on cold nights.

The animal world is not whimsical to food, water, and the color is close to the color of the earth's surface. Many are characterized by night life, during the day they sleep.

The most famous and widespread is the camel, the only one that can eat camel thorn and go without water for a long time. All thanks to its hump, which contains a supply of nutrients.

Reptiles also live: lizard, agama, monitor lizard. The length of the latter can reach one and a half meters. A variety of insects, arachnids, mammals (jerboas, gerbils) make up the desert fauna.

What is the secret to scorpion survival in deserts?

Scorpions are representatives of the arachnid species. And this is surprising, since they do not look like spiders at all. Scorpions prefer dry and hot deserts, but even some of their species have adapted to tropical rainforests. These arachnids also live in Russia. For example, the yellow scorpion can be found in the forests of Dagestan and Chechnya. In the Lower Volga region, the motley scorpion lives in wastelands and dried-up desert areas, and the Italian and Crimean scorpions are found on the Black Sea coasts.

Since the respiratory system of these arachnids is poorly adapted to a dry and hot climate, this feature makes the insect hide from the heat in various crevices, cracks, under stones, burrow into sand or soil. There they find at least some moisture. That is why scorpions are nocturnal animals: during the day they sleep, waiting out the heat, and at night they do good. Desert scorpions can do almost without water, feeding on various insects, and large individuals can eat a lizard or a small rodent. Cases have been recorded when a scorpion survives after starvation from 0.5 to 1.5 years. In the desert, scorpions mainly extract moisture from food, but sometimes suck it out of wet sand.

For any animal and plant of the desert, the main difficulty is the lack of moisture, the lack of water. It is this feature that gives the world such bizarre forms of life. Someone adapted not to drink, limited to moisture obtained from food. Someone often changes their place of stay in search of water. Someone moves in the dry season closer to the water. For some, metabolic water is formed in the process of metabolism. One way or another, desert animals have found a way to survive in the harsh desert climate.

In addition, watch the BBC documentary from the "Forces of Nature" series, the film explains in detail the features of desert branding