🌵 Who lives in the desert? 🐪✨ Discover the secrets of this mysterious world!
A small fox with big ears
Fenech is the smallest fox on the planet. She lives in the Sahara desert. She is even smaller than a domestic cat.
The height at the withers is 18–22 cm, the body length is 30–40 cm, the tail is up to 30 cm, it weighs up to 1.5 kg. The muzzle is short, pointed. Eyes are big. The ears of the fennec are the largest among predators relative to the size of the head; they reach 15 cm in length and are needed for better cooling of the body in the heat of the day. Animal’s body does not have sweat glands, and it is the ears that help the body not to overheat. The foot is lowered, which allows the fennec to move on hot sand. His teeth are small, especially his canines. The hair cover of the fennec is high, thick and soft, of a protective color: reddish or fawn on top, white on the bottom. The tail is fluffy, with a black tip.
Fennec inhabits sandy deserts, where it likes to stick to thickets of grass and sparse bushes, which provide it with shelter and food. He lives in holes that he digs himself; leads a nocturnal lifestyle.
Fennecs are social animals, they live in family groups. Clans usually consist of one family couple, their offspring, and possibly several older children who help raise the offspring. They are very “chatty”: they bark, whine, grunt and howl.
The fennec is omnivorous and digs most of its food from sand and earth. They hunt mostly alone, like all foxes. The fennec feeds on small vertebrates, eggs, insects (including locusts), carrion, plant roots and fruits. Huge ears allow him to catch the lightest rustle. It can do without water for a long time, getting liquid from meat, berries and leaves.
The tree of life
In the desert, where the daytime temperature in the shade reaches +40 C and even more, and plants are not often found, and a tree is a rarity in general. However, a tree has been growing in the desert of Bahrain for about 400 years in some incomprehensible way. Local residents call it Shajarat-al-Hayat, which translates as “tree of life.”
Scientists are still trying to figure out how it manages to survive in such an arid climate. There are two main versions. The first is that the roots are very deep in the ground and reach the water source. The second is that the tree learned to extract water from grains of sand. And the Bedouins are sure that it grows with the blessing of the water god Enki. Whatever the reason, Shajarat al-Hayat continues to grow, currently reaching a height of 10 m.
A long-lived inhabitant of the Namib desert
Velvichia is amazing – a perennial, long-lived tree, the only species of the monotypic genus Velvichia. Grows only in a small area in the Namib desert along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean in Namibia and in the south of Angola. This is a tree, although, at first glance, it does not look like that at all. The whole plant consists of a stem root and two leaves that grow continuously throughout life. Over time, the length of each of them reaches 2–4 m. From contact with the hot soil, their ends gradually dry up, and the leaves themselves are torn into separate strips by the wind.
When the Australian traveler and botanist Fradrich Welwich saw this plant in 1859, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Because I did not expect to find a pile of garbage in the middle of the desert. When he came closer, he saw that in front of him was a tree stump with a diameter of about 1 meter, from which leaves are coming. At first it seemed that there were many leaves, but after looking closely, he made sure that there were only two of them, simply torn into strips by the wind. Later, an English botanist called the plant Velvichia amazing in honor of the discoverer.
Namib desert
You can meet her only in the rocky Namib desert, and then not often. A seed blown by the wind can lie dormant for several years, waiting for rain. If the sprout takes root, the first leaves will appear in about a year. During its lifetime, the velwichia produces only two leaves. Which grow at a rate of 8-15 cm per year. Life expectancy up to 2000 years.
It has an interesting structure of leaves. Usually, in desert plants, they are thick to retain moisture, and in Velvichia they are flat and long. Water is almost impossible to find in the sands. But even in the part of the desert where it grows, there are often fogs, which are the main source of nutritious moisture. Over time, the leaves tear, tangle and dry up. Therefore, Velvichya begins to seem like a pile of garbage.
The plant is considered the national symbol of Namibia. His image is on the coat of arms of the country. It is forbidden to collect seeds without special permission from the country’s government.
Monster flower
Hydnora africana (Hydnora africana) is a species of parasitic flowering plants of the Hydnora family. It is a root parasite that lives on succulents from the Euphorbia family. Its giant roots spread out in different directions and cling to the roots of trees or bushes, taking away nutrients.
It is not often possible to see a dignified African. The flower spends most of its life underground. On the surface of the African gorse appears only after heavy rain, which is very rare in the regions where this plant is widespread. But when it appears on the surface, it immediately blooms flowers, the size of which can reach 15 cm.
They attract and repel at the same time. Bright orange flowers look like the heads of snakes with gaping mouths. They have the smell of rotten meat. It is this smell that attracts insects, which transfer the seeds of the gondora to other plants. The parasite flower is a kind of complex temporary trap. After pollination, the gerbera eats insects until the flower withers. Then the beetles use its petals to lay their larvae. And the monster plant again switches to a parasitic way of life. Hydnora is edible. Foxes, jackals, porcupines and other animals and even local residents eat it. In Madagascar, a dessert is prepared from the flowers, mixing them with cream, and the roots are used to prepare tinctures and treat the cardiovascular system, acne.
Living stones
Lithops (Lithops) is a genus of supersucculent perennials that belongs to the Aizaceae or Mesembryanthem family. Representatives of the genus grow in South Africa. Outwardly, lithops look like stones.
Lithops are very easy to confuse with pebbles, but only until the buds appear. Flowers grow from the gap between the fused leaves. The color of the flowers is white or yellow (sometimes orange), 2.5-3 cm in diameter. The flowers open in the afternoon and close at sunset. They can exceed 4 cm in diameter, completely covering the plant. Some species have fragrant flowers.
Lithops are found in the stony deserts of Africa, where other plants cannot survive. About 40 species of this genus are known, and all grow underground. Only the tip of the club-shaped leaf remains on the surface, the size of which can reach up to 5 cm in height and width. When the time comes for new leaves to appear, the old ones die, giving away nutrients and moisture. After the rains, which usually fall in autumn, millions of small yellow, white or orange flowers bloom all over the desert. They are pollinated, the fruit ripens, the wind spreads the seeds, and the lithops zvov will be in a state of rest.
Perekotifield
Perekotipole is the general name of many types of steppe and desert herbaceous plants that, after dying, form round bunches that sway in the wind, dispersing seeds.
A large ball of dry grass rolling across the desert is a nightmare for residents in arid regions. The largest bullets can reach the size of a car and cause damage: block the door of the house, cause a fire. But you can benefit. For example, to use as a backup feed for animals during a drought. And in the American state of New Mexico for Christmas they install a snowman made of perecotipol. The tallest snowman was 4 meters tall.
The beginning of such layers is laid by plants that develop a branched but thin stem with spreading branches. Most often, the basis for a ball is a cutter, level, kermek, larch and other plants found in arid climates. Having appeared among the sands, the plant quickly increases in size. It is covered with flowers already on the fourth or fifth day after germination. However, the roots very quickly absorb moisture from the soil and the plant withers. Then the stem is separated from the roots, it is picked up by the wind and rolls across the desert. A ball is gradually formed, into which straws, branches and leaves fall. Because of that, the ball increases in size. Moving through the desert, the perecotipole promotes the spread of seeds.
Some types of plants that form perekotipole can seriously increase soil erosion. So, according to the research, one Kali tragus bush can take 167 liters of water from the soil.
Desert rose
“Desert rose” (“desert rose” or “sand rose”) is a colloquial name for formations of crystalline clusters of gypsum or barite, which denotes one of the morphological varieties of the mineral gypsum. Mineral aggregates form characteristic growths of lenticular flattened clusters of crystals (rosettes).
Even the Bedouin nomads noticed that strange formations resembling flowers are often found in the desert. At first, it was believed that this was caused by the defecation of a camel. But scientists have established that the matter is not in the urine. The main substance of the formation is sand. It should be saturated with gypsum. In order for a flower to form, it must rain. It saturates the sand with moisture and glues the gypsum particles together. When the heat starts again, the water will begin to evaporate and the drops, rising, will form gypsum crystals of a twisted shape. As it crystallizes in the sand mass, sand particles inevitably become inclusions in the gypsum crystal. If iron oxides are present, the sockets get a rusty tone.
Each desert rose is unique. It has its own size, shape and color, which depends on the color of the grains of sand. The white ones are in the Sahara, the black ones are in the deserts
As a rule, most of these roses have a size ranging from a pea (0.5 — 1 cm) to 4 cm in diameter. The largest recorded “desert rose” in the Oklahoma Geological Survey measured 43 by 25 cm and weighed 56 kg. And the clusters of pink rocks reached 39 cm in height and weighed more than 450 kg.