Have you ever been really thirsty on a hot day? If you’re living where it’s scorching for part of the year and doesn’t rain much – that’s the desert! In the southwestern part of the United States, there are four big deserts: the Great Basin, the Chihuahuan, the Mojave, and the Sonoran Desert. Guess what? The Sonoran Desert is all around Phoenix, Arizona, where Jungle Roots Dentistry is!
Let’s find out some cool secrets about how animals in this hot and dry place stay hydrated, which means having enough water in their bodies to stay healthy.
The Desert is Like a Giant Hot Oven!
The area around Phoenix, Arizona, is huge and can be incredibly hot and dry. In the summer, it can get hotter than 120 degrees! It doesn’t rain much here – only around 7 to 8 inches in a whole year!
The first part of the year in Phoenix is usually nice and not too hot, with a little rain and some wind. That’s when the desert plants like to bloom. But then comes May and June, which is like a really dry time before the real summer heat. It gets extremely hot, the air is very dry, and it doesn’t rain much. So, the plants that live here have to be tough and not need much water. That’s why there aren’t many big trees, mostly just special desert plants. Even in the mountains, there are bushes and cacti. It’s a tough place for plants and animals to live, but some animals have amazing abilities to live and thrive in this harsh place!
How Do Desert Animals Beat the Blazing Heat?
In the southwestern United States, lots of animals have special ways to live without much water in the desert. Some of them don’t even drink water like we do!
Tiny Water Experts
Think about the kangaroo rat. It’s a little mouse-like animal that’s a great survivor in the desert. These guys dig tunnels in the ground called burrows. It’s cooler and wetter down there than on the hot sand. They eat dry seeds and beans and stuff them in their cheeks to return to their burrows. Because it’s damp in their tunnels, the food can soak up more water – like a sponge! These little rats also have really strong kidneys that hold onto their pee for a long time, making it very concentrated. This helps them keep as much water in their bodies as possible.
Plant Juice Drinkers
Lots of desert animals get their water straight from plants! Plants like the cactus are full of juicy liquid inside. Some bugs like to poke holes in the stems and drink the juice. Other bugs eat the leaves and fruit of these plants to get water. Then, bigger animals like birds, bats, and lizards eat the plants or those juicy bugs and get the water that way! It’s like a water circle!
Sleeping During the Day
Many desert animals are clever – they stay out of the sun when it’s really hot! They have ways to stay cool and safe from other animals by chilling in their burrows or nests during the day. They only come out at night when it’s cooler to look for food and a little bit of water. This saves energy because they don’t have to run around in the heat, and it helps them save water because they’re not eating or drinking when it’s hottest.
Finding Cool Shade
Shade is like gold in the desert because there aren’t many trees. Bigger animals like bighorn sheep find shady spots under rocks or in cracks during the day. They stay still until the sun goes down. Their big bodies take a long time to heat up, so they have some time to find a cool spot. They also lose their thick winter wool in stages.
Cooling Feathers and Legs
Desert birds have a clever trick – they lose some of the fluffy feathers under their top feathers to stay cooler. Some birds even have a warmer body temperature than we do, so they feel comfortable until it gets even hotter! They can also make the tiny vessels that carry blood in their bare legs get bigger. This helps the extra heat in their bodies go out into the air, like a radiator!
Big Ears as Fans
The jackrabbit has really big ears that act like fans! The tiny blood vessels in their big ears release heat when resting. They grew bigger ears than their cousins in cooler places so they can lose more heat!
Losing Fur and Panting Like a Dog
Some desert animals, like the desert coyote, lose their thick fur coats in the spring to help their bodies cool down. When they get hot, they pant, just like a dog! When they breathe fast with their tongues out, the air moving over their wet tongues and the inside of their mouths cools them down. As those parts cool, the little blood vessels nearby also cool down, and that cool blood goes all around their body.
Hiding Underground and Storing Water
Small animals like desert snakes and the Gila monster are good at hiding from the heat. Most of them sleep during the day and dig tunnels under the sandy ground to escape the hot surface. The desert tortoise and the Gila monster have tough skin and dig into the loose sand to stay cool. They also have a special trick – they can store water in a part of their body called the bladder! They can use this stored water when it’s really hot by absorbing the water – without absorbing the waste. That means they can go without drinking water for much longer than we can!
The Amazing Camel!
Even though camels don’t live in the deserts of North America, we have to talk about them when we talk about saving water. When people think about animals that can live without much water, they always think of the camel!
Camels usually live in dry places in Asia and Africa. People have used them for a long, long time to travel across the desert. Camels are strong! They can carry a lot of weight and walk for many miles in a day.
Some camels have one hump on their back (dromedary camels), and some have two (Bactrian camels). These humps aren’t full of water like some people think. Instead, they store fat. The camel can turn this fat into energy and water when they need it! They can live for more than a week without drinking water and for many months without eating much because of their humps. They also don’t sweat unless it’s hotter than 106 degrees!
The camel is the ultimate desert animal!
What We Learned
Life in the deserts of North America is hard for many animals, but those with special ways to stay cool and get water practically have superpowers! Humans need lots of water to stay hydrated enough to keep our bodies and teeth healthy, and we get thirsty to let us know when we really need to hydrate. Our bodies couldn’t even last one day in the desert with as little water as many desert animals use! Desert animals have amazing ways to live without much water, and they are perfectly suited to their desert homes.
We hope you have a wonderful summer and look forward to seeing you soon!