Sahara & Deserts

About the Sahara & Deserts

The Sahara is the largest hot desert on Earth and it has not always been one — within the span of human history it held lakes, rivers and grazing herds, and rock art across the region shows animals that could not survive there now. What lives there today solves the same two problems in different ways: how to avoid the heat, and how to live without drinking. The answers are mostly behavioural — go underground, come out at night, stay small, or move constantly to wherever rain last fell. The physiological answers are just as striking: kidneys that concentrate urine to a paste, coats that reflect rather than absorb, and metabolisms that extract water from food. Desert wildlife is thinly spread and easily missed, which has also meant it is thinly surveyed and its declines have often gone unnoticed.