How do animals and plants adapt themselves to live in intense heat, (in hot deserts)and in intense cold (in cold deserts), How do they survive with very little water?
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Explanation:
The hair and feathers of desert animals, found in thick layers on animals such as camels, desert sheep and ostriches, can insulate against both heat and cold. Sweating and panting, desert adaptations known as evaporative cooling, helps many large mammals to accelerate heat loss
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Answer:
How Do Animals Adapt Themselves in the Cold Desert?
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When you think of a desert, most people imagine vast stretches of sand, hot dry winds and scorching heat. This is not always true, though. Many deserts are always cold, with long cold winters and snowfall and short summers with little precipitation.
Such deserts are known as cold deserts or temperate deserts, which always have a cool climate and do not really experience scorching hot.
Cold deserts are located in the temperate zone of the earth, where the temperatures are cooler than the tropics but warmer than the polar regions. Usually, cold deserts are located in interior areas far from the coast or near high mountains with low humidity, which makes the weather dry and cold.
Animal Adaptations to Hot Climates
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The hot climate of a desert is a testing environment for living creatures. The hot days and cold nights mean they need to be well equipped to deal with the extremes. These factors, along with the hot climates' lack of water and shelter, has resulted in animals' adapting their bodies to suit the climate.
Behavioral Patterns
Animals in hot climates have adapted behavioral patterns to avoid the hottest part of the day or season. For example, the Costa's hummingbird breeds in late spring and leaves the area for the hot summer. Meanwhile, reptiles and mammals are only active at dusk or night. Burrowing is also a useful mechanism. Lizards bury themselves in the sand during the day, while rodents create burrows and plug the entrance to keep out hot air.
Dissipating Heat
To keep cool, animals have created mechanisms to encourage air circulation around their bodies and to dissipate heat. Camels have a thin layer of fur underneath their bellies to help lose heat, while a thicker layer across theit humps shade them. Owls, nighthawks and poorwills fly around with their mouths open so water is evaporated from the mouth. Vultures urinate on their legs so it cools them down as it is evaporated. They can also fly high in the air to experience cooler air flows.
Getting Rid of Heat
Some desert animals, such as antelope squirrels and camels, are active during hot summer days because they can allow their bodies to accumulate heat without harm. Body temperatures rise to 40 degrees Celsius or more (104 degrees Fahrenheit), doing away with the need to cool themselves by evaporating body water. Squirrels lose excess heat to shaded surfaces and camels to cooler night air.
A variety of adaptation examples can be seen in desert biome animals. Desert sheep, goats, camels and donkeys retain insulating fur on the tops of their bodies but have sparsely covered abdomens and legs that radiate excess heat. Jackrabbits have long legs that carry them well above the heated ground and large ears well-supplied with blood vessels. Blood flow to the ears increases to lose heat to cooler air and flow decreases when air is hotter than body temperature to avoid overheating.
Avoiding Water Loss
To save water ordinarily lost in excretion, another common desert adaptation in animals is dry feces and concentrated urine. Specialized desert dwellers, such as the kangaroo rat, have feces five times drier than that of a laboratory rat and urine twice as concentrated as the white laboratory rat. Other animals, including lizards, snakes, insects and birds, excrete uric acid, rather than liquid urine.
Small rodents and birds, such as cactus wrens, have specialized nasal passages that cool the breath before it is exhaled, condensing water for re-absorption. Many desert lizards possess nasal salt glands that excrete potassium and sodium chloride with very little water loss.
Water-Capturing Strategies
Kangaroo rats go their whole lives without drinking free water. They can capture water by oxidizing food -- recombining molecules -- to create water. One gram of the high-carbohydrate grass seeds that form the bulk of its diet produces one-half gram of oxidation water. Many small desert animals get sufficient water in the food they eat, such as rodents that eat water-storing cactus stems and cactus fruits, and birds that eat insects. The large lizards called Gila monsters store water in fatty deposits in their tails and desert tortoises store water in their urinary bladders that can be reabsorbed when needed.
Desert Plant Adaptations
Desert plant adaptations to conserve moisture include thick, waxy outer coverings and reduced leaves, if there are any leaves. Many desert plants have spines that provide protection from grazing animals and also produce shade. Some desert plant species survive by dying when the environment becomes too dry but leaving seeds with tough outer coatings that protect the seed until the rains come again. To survive, desert herbivores must cope with these plant adaptations.
Explanation:
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