Desert Animals
Explore animals of the desert — camels, fennec foxes, scorpions, rattlesnakes, meerkats — and understand how desert animals survive extreme heat and lack of water through being active at night, storing water or fat, burrowing underground during the day, and having large ears to lose heat
What a learner can do afterwards
- Names at least 4 desert animals
- Explains at least two desert survival adaptations (nocturnal behaviour, water storage, burrowing, large ears for cooling)
- Knows deserts can be hot or cold but are always dry
The lesson
A desert is a place that gets very little rain. That is the one thing that makes it a desert. Some deserts are burning hot in the day, like the Sahara. Others are cold enough for snow, like the Gobi. Hot or cold, deserts are always dry, and camels, fennec foxes, scorpions, rattlesnakes, and meerkats have all found clever ways to live there.
Zara sees a camel crossing the sand. It has walked for days without a drink. The camel is not storing water in its hump, it is storing fat. The fat breaks down slowly and gives the camel energy, plus a little water, when there is nothing to eat or drink.
Look at a fennec fox's ears. Big ears for such a small fox! Large ears let body heat escape, so the fox stays cooler. Meerkats and many other desert animals also dig burrows and rest underground, where the sand stays cool even when the surface is baking hot.
Deserts are always dry, hot or cold, and desert animals cope by resting in the day, storing water or fat, digging cool burrows, and losing heat through big ears.
Watch it
Where it sits
Learn first
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Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.