Check out this Official Postcrossing card from Texas! There’s a REALLY cool assortment of desert dwellers featured on this card. For the faint of heart, make sure to only look at the top part of the card, where the animals only have four or fewer legs. As you may imagine, living in the desert is no walk in the park (to kill an idiom with realism, it’s a walk in the desert). Desert animals have to adapt to the scarcity of water and the extreme heat. I’d guess that this is more of a thing for really big deserts like the Gobi, but I’d think it’d apply to deserts in southwestern USA too. One adaptation would be the general color of many desert animals. A lot of them have a sandy color to them so that it reflects more sunlight and absorbs less. Many animals are also nocturnal or crepuscular (new word for me – this means that they’re active during twilight hours), so they’re present when the heat has lessened. Burrows also help escape the heat. As far as getting and conserving water goes, these desert fellows can find some in plants and seeds. Other, more predatory animals can glean water from the blood and tissue of their prey. Doesn’t get much more resourceful than that! Some animals can store water for a long time (such as camels, though not depicted here); others, like scorpions and spiders, can retain moisture using a thick coating around their body. I’m reading a book right now about Darwin and the seeming whimsy of adaptations, so both that and learning about how desert animals get by intrigues the heck outta me. I’m quite fascinated by this card! Thank you so much for choosing this for me!
