Blog: Habitats: Desert Wildlife

Military Sand Dragon

Photograph by Jason Edwards

A military sand dragon poses in the red sands of Australia's Alice Springs Desert Park. Although they are harsh environments, deserts form diverse ecosystems with plants and animals that have adapted to arid living.

Herd of Goats

Photograph by Medford Taylor

Goats manage to find edibles in the seemingly barren terrain of Australia's Simpson Desert. Many farmers raise livestock in the desert, but over-grazing can harm native species.

Gray Fox

Photograph by Joel Sartore

Lush fur and watchful eyes help this gray fox survive in the harsh, often cold climate of Chile's Atacama Desert, the driest place on Earth. Parts of this desert see rain about once every 10 years.

Meerkats

Photograph by Mattias Klum

Watchful meerkats scout for predators outside their burrow in the South African Kalahari. If danger is spotted, they will alert others using a wide array of vocalizations, which some researchers think differ according to the type of threat

Mountain Lion

Photograph by Norbert Rosing

A mountain lion swaggers across an outcropping in Arizona's Monument Valley. Unlike most other desert animals, mountain lions are active during the daytime.

Gemsbok

Photograph by Bobby Haas

A gemsbok gallops through the loose sand of Namibia's Namib Desert. Considered one of the world's oldest deserts, the Namib contains sand dunes that reach some 1,000 feet (305 meters) in height.

Emperor Penguins

Photograph by Ted Mead/Getty Images

Sheltered by a titanic iceberg, emperor penguins bask in the Antarctic sun. Emperor penguins survive this harsh environment, where wind chills can reach -75 degrees Fahrenheit (-60 degrees Celsius), by huddling together in large groups to block wind and conserve warmth.

Caravan of Camels

Photograph by Carsten Peter

Tracing a centuries-old route, a caravan of adventurers plies a 1,500-mile (2,414-kilometer) trail through the heart of the sprawling Sahara. The Sahara covers some 8 percent of Earth's land area.

Desert Landscapes

Black Rock Desert, Nevada

Photograph by Jack Dykinga/Getty Images

Minerals, algae, and cyanobacteria give this geyser in Nevada's Black Rock Desert its brilliant colors.

Quadbikes, Dumont Dunes, California

Photograph by Kevin Morris/Getty Images

Lacking virtually any wildlife that could be harmed with its patrons, the off-highway-vehicle recreation area in Dumont Dunes, California, offers big thrills for dune riders of all types.

Ash Samat Sand Dunes

Photograph by Stephen Alvarez

The towering ridge of a sand dune in the Arabian Desert points to the afternoon sun. The Sahara, Arabian, Iranian, and Thar deserts all connect together to form a 6,000-mile (9,600-kilometer) expanse of drylands in North Africa.

Dunes in Omani Interior

Photograph by Stephen Alvarez

This crescent-shaped ridge of sand dune in Oman was formed by strong trade winds that form a smooth hill facing the wind (left) and concave slipface on the back.

Late Afternoon in Desert

Photograph by Sam Abell

Ergs are vast expanses of sand dunes like this area in Oman. Sometimes they are also called sand seas because the dunes look and act like very slowly moving ocean waves.

Simpson Desert

Photograph by Medford Taylor

A rippled white dune glows under a blue sky in central Australia's Simpson Desert. Rainfall in this desolate land is less than 7.8 inches (200 millimeters) per year.

Desert Plants

Tumbleweed

Photograph from Bruce Coleman/Alamy

Most people recognize this mature Russian thistle as common tumbleweed. But not many would recognize it in its green, succulent juvenile stage before it breaks from the ground to spread seeds.

Prickly Pear Cacti

Photograph by Tim Laman

The yellow bloom of a prickly pear cactus brightens this view of a California desert. Cacti are often thought of as a stereotypical desert plant, but they are rarely the dominant species in an area of desert.

Cacti

Photograph by Stephen St. John

Prickly pear cacti fill the foreground and saguaros cover the distant hills in Arizona's Saguaro National Park. A full grown saguaro cactus can hold as much as 201 gallons (760 liters) of water.

Saguaro Cactus

Photograph by Todd Gipstein

Because it is so close to the ocean, the Sonoran Desert receives more rain than any other desert, about 10 to 14 inches (25 to 35 cm) a year. This precipitation allows cacti like this saguaro to grow extremely large.

Mexican Poppies

Photograph by Annie Griffiths Belt

Golden-hued Mexican poppies surround prickly pear cacti in San Pedro Valley, Arizona. The Sonoran Desert has about 2,500 different native plant species, more than any other desert.

Weathered Trees

Photograph by Richard Olsenius

The ravaged landscape of Snake Range in Nevada's Great Basin National Park stands as a testament to the power of wind and water erosion.

Wildflowers

Photograph by Annie Griffiths Belt

Wildflowers like these attract bees to the otherwise forbidding Sonoran Desert in Arizona. Scientists think more than 1,000 different bee species may live here.

Threats to Deserts

Lake Powell, Utah

Photograph by Peter Essick

The cracked bed of Utah's drought-plagued Lake Powell bakes under the desert sun. The rate of evaporation in deserts can be 20 times higher than the rate of precipitation.

Antarctic Ice Sheet

Photograph courtesy Ben Holt, Sr./NASA

An enormous iceberg nestles into an ice shelf in Antarctica. Disintegrating ice shelves in Antarctica have caused alarm among scientists who warn that ice loss here could mean a disastrous rise in sea levels worldwide.

Alaskan Glaciers

Photograph by Peter Essick

Pools of water fill crevices in Alaska's Columbia Glacier. This ice field has been melting rapidly over the past 20 years, sending millions of gallons of water and miles of ice into Prince William Sound every year.

Jeep in African Desert

Photograph by George Steinmetz

With temperatures reaching 136˚ F (58˚ C) in the shade, an African desert is a bad place to get stranded. So along with plenty of water and a spare tire, travelers may also want to bring a spare ATV.

Data courtesy World Wildlife Fund

Desert and Xeric Shrublands

Deserts and xeric, or dry, shrublands rarely receive more than 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rainfall annually. These bone-dry ecosystems have an abundance of life and are characterized by flatlands, rolling sand dunes, and cactus forests.

Deserts

Arid, But Full of Life

Photograph by Stephen Sharnoff and Sylvia Duran

Far from being barren wastelands, deserts are biologically rich habitats with a vast array of animals and plants that have adapted to the harsh conditions there. Some deserts are among the planet's last remaining areas of total wilderness. Yet more than one billion people, one-sixth of the Earth's population, actually live in desert regions.

Deserts cover more than one fifth of the Earth's land, and they are found on every continent. A place that receives less than 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain per year is considered a desert. Deserts are part of a wider classification of regions called "drylands." These areas exist under a moisture deficit, which means they can frequently lose more moisture through evaporation than they receive from annual precipitation.

And despite the common conceptions of deserts as dry and hot, there are cold deserts as well. The largest hot desert in the world, northern Africa's Sahara, reaches temperatures of up to 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius) during the day. But some deserts are always cold, like the Gobi desert in Asia and the desert on the continent of Antarctica. Others are mountainous. Only about 10 percent of deserts are covered by sand dunes. The driest deserts get less than half an inch (one centimeter) of precipitation each year, and that is from condensed fog not rain.

Desert animals have adapted ways to help them keep cool and use less water. Camels, for example, can go for days without food and water. Many desert animals are nocturnal, coming out only when the brutal sun has descended to hunt. Some animals, like the desert tortoise in the southwestern United States, spend much of their time underground. Most desert birds are nomadic, crisscrossing the skies in search of food. Because of their very special adaptations, desert animals are extremely vulnerable to introduced predators and changes to their habitat.

Desert plants may have to go without fresh water for years at a time. Some plants have adapted to the arid climate by growing long roots that tap water from deep underground. Other plants, such as cacti, have special means of storing and conserving water. Many desert plants can live to be hundreds of years old.

Some of the world's semi-arid regions are turning into desert at an alarming rate. This process, known as "desertification," is not caused by drought, but usually arises from the demands of human populations that settle on the semi-arid lands to grow crops and graze animals. The pounding of the soil by the hooves of livestock may degrade the soil and encourage erosion by wind and water.

Global warming also threatens to change the ecology of desert. Higher temperatures may produce an increasing number of wildfires that alter desert landscapes by eliminating slow-growing trees and shrubs and replacing them with fast-growing grasses.

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