LIVING DESERTS

"Always thirsty, almost always hungry" --Wilfred Thesiger on traveling across the Empty Quarter in Saudi Arabia.

The Mojave Desert in California provided my first encounter with a desert.  Among other things, its fame derived from the notoriety of Death Valley, Las Vegas and the Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force base, where astronauts now land their spacecraft.  Breathing the fresh air made desert life very appealing just as the clear skies have been perfect for aeronautics.

One of the alluring things about any desert, away from the fumes of city traffic and apart from dust storms, is the clean air.  If you've lived in cities with polluted air, as London, Los Angeles, Athens, Mexico City or Bangkok have been, the desert can reinvigorate the whole respiratory system.

Deserts can be exciting for other reasons, like the incredible blossoming of flora in the spring, especially on the deserts where there has been just the right amount of winter rain.  One of the joys, for many, of desert living has been the fields of yellow and purple following a rainy season.  A superb collection of photographs of Simpson Desert Flora in Australia can be seen at the Outback Experience.

The creatures that inhabit the deserts of the world can also provide an interesting array of wildlife.  Apart from the snakes and scorpions that often become unfriendly when they sense dangers from humans, the harmless lizards, rabbits and birds -- and in some deserts, camels, gazelles, foxes, dingos and falcons -- offer a fascinating study in survival.

Intense heat, lack of water and the searing sun figure among the challenges faced by desert animals.  Some, like camels, store water; others never drink it but get their water from plants and seeds.  To avoid the sun and heat, desert animals sleep during the day and come out at night.  For an engaging page of desert animals, visit the Living Desert.

Humans who live in deserts have also had to learn to adapt in order to survive.  However, in recent years, with the influx of people to the modern desert oases of cities, they may know very little about their surrounding environment or how to survive without the modern conveniences.

Travelers who visit Arabia, for example, often know very little about the desert.  The same can be said of visitors to the cities in the Sahara, like those along the rivers Nile and Niger.  How many people who fly into Las Vegas give much thought to their desert surroundings?

Many people who live in desert countries never venture beyond the roads and buildings of the cities and villages.  With the population density the highest in the Arab world, much less desert is left to explore than in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait in the Gulf or in the North African Sahara countries.

Anyone who's visited a desert wildlife park, however, can imagine how exciting it would be to see a herd of gazelle racing across the desert.  Those who have stopped along the roads to watch a shepherd with his herd of sheep or camels can visualize what desert life is like for its original nomads.

To see an Arabian saluki chase and catch a rabbit or run circles around a pack of ordinary dogs can provide a thrilling view of desert life in the wild.  Hunting with salukis and falcons has almost become a lost art for the descendants of earlier desert survivors.

In Kuwait, one could go to the central market on a Friday and see a Bedouin sitting there with his falcon perched on his gloved arm or on a specially built wooden stand.  Both falcon and falconer had the same penetrating, sharp eyes needed to see their prey or foes at long distances.

The Bedouin of the desert knew how to survive without air conditioning in the searing heat of summer.  One English writer has left a superb record of his adventures in the Arabian Desert and his life with its inhabitants.

Wilfred Thesiger, recounted his travels through the Saudi Arabian Empty Quarter in his book Arabian Sands.  Thesiger's well-written record of his life with the Bedouin covered a period of four years when he lived and traveled with them.

One reviewer wrote of Thesiger's account, "It was fascinating to read how people lived, what values they had, how they coped with an unbelievably tough environment in places where 40 years later highways and high-rise buildings fill the landscape."

Not surprisingly, many who have lived in a desert community develop an interest in other deserts.  When people become aware of the many varieties of deserts and how they differ, they often want to know more about desert life.  Perhaps in the backs of our minds we become so accustomed to clean air and sunshine that we wonder what it would be like to live in another desert. 

For more on the principal deserts of the world, infoplease has divided them into different categories: subtropical, cool coastal, cold winter and Polar Regions.  The site includes information about location, size and topography in a single chart.

Obviously, from the previous comment, not all deserts offer heat and warmth of daily sunshine.  The largest desert in the world isn't the Sahara's 3.5 million square miles but the 5.4 million square miles of ice, snow and bedrock of Antarctica.

A website about deserts that's been visited by 16.5 million people may have enjoyed that popularity because it was posted by Jim Cornish a Canadian 5th grade teacher who developed a "Deserts Theme" page for students.

Often, for those who want sound information presented clearly and interestingly, sites for the young can offer a remarkably enjoyable learning experience for people of any age.  Jim's site goes into the formation, landscapes and climates with interesting pages on animals, plants and people of various deserts.  For some odd reason, the Antarctic desert has been left out of the site though arctic deserts have been included.

Perhaps the most important things we can learn from desert life include the staying power of whatever grows there, the mettle of its creatures and the tenacity of its people.

Akhenaton has been credited with saying,  “As a camel beareth labour, and heat, and hunger, and thirst, through deserts of sand, so the fortitude of a man shall sustain him through all perils."

Some of the largest deserts in the world: courtesy Enchanted Learning:

	Names of Deserts	Location	Animals
Hot Desert	Great Sandy Desert, Great Victoria, Simpson, Gibson, Tanami	Australia	bilby, dingo, kangaroo, marsupial mole, quokka, rabbit-eared bandicoot, etc.
Hot Desert	Arabian Desert	Arabian Peninsula	dromedary, dung beetle, camel, civet, Egyptian vulture, flamingo, fox, gazelle, hare, hedgehog, Arabian horse, hyena, ibex, jackal, jerboa, lesser bustard, lizard, locust, oryx, peregrine falcon, porcupine, sand cobra, scorpion, skink, veiled chameleon, viper, etc.
Hot Desert	Chihuahuan	Mexico/S.W. USA	big free-tailed bat, coyote, diamondback rattlesnake, kangaroo rat, roadrunner, vampire bat, etc.
Hot Desert	Kalahari	S.W. Africa	gazelle, gerbil, ground squirrel, hyena, jackal, meerkat, springbok, etc
Hot Desert	Mojave	S.W. USA	bighorn sheep, coyote, desert tortoise, jack rabbit, pupfish, sidewinder, etc..
Hot Desert	Monte	Argentina, South America	armadillo, cavy, jaguarundi, puma,tinamou, tuco-tuco, etc.
Hot Desert	Sahara	North Africa	addax antelope, barn owls, cape hare, dama deer, desert hedgehog, dorcas gazelle, fan-tailed raven, Fennec fox, gerbil, horned viper, jackal, jerboa, mouse, Nubian bustard, ostrich, sand fox, shrew, slender mongoose, spiny-tailed lizard, spotted hyena, etc.
Hot Desert	Sonoran	S.W. USA, Mexico	barn owl, big free-tailed bat, black widow spider, bobcat, chuckwallas, coati, collared peccary, desert iguana, desert tortoise, dragonfly, elf owl, gila monster, kangaroo rat, pack rat, Mexican gray wolf, mule deer, pupfish, rattlesnake, red-tailed hawk, roadrunner, scorpion, sidewinder, tarantula, turkey vulture, wild burros, etc.
Hot Desert	Thar	Indian, Pakistan	dromedary, great Indian bustard, Indian spiny-tailed lizard, jackal, sandgrouse, etc.
Coastal Desert	Atacama	Peru, Chile	llama, Peruvian fox, etc.
Cold and Hot Desert	Gobi	China, Mongolia	Bactrian camel, beetles, blue hill pigeon, desert wheatear, gazelle, gecko, Mongolian gerbil, jerboa, Gobi bear, lizards, onager, Pallas cat, Pallas sandgrouse, Przewalski horse (now extinct), short-toed larks, snow leopard, wild mountain sheep, wolf, etc.
Cold and Hot Desert	Iranian	Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan	monitor lizard, onager, oryx, scorpion, etc.
Cold and Hot Desert	Namib	S. W. Africa	fringe-toed lizard, golden mole, jackal, sidewinder, viper, web-footed gecko, etc.
Cold and Hot Desert	Takla Makan	W. China	Bactrian camel, jerboa, long-eared hedgehog, gazelle, etc.
Cold Desert	Patagonian	Argentina, South America	guanaco, lesser rhea, mara, pygmy armadillo, tuco-tuco, Patagonian weasel, foxes, puma, hawks, eagles, etc.
Cold Desert	Turkestan	Middle East	Asian tortoise, gazelle, gerbil, saiga antelope, etc.
Cold Desert	Antarctic Desert	Antarctica	Brown skua, penguins, mites, springtails, worms, etc.
Semi-arid Desert	Great Basin	USA	bighorn sheep, jack rabbit, pocket mouse, pronghorn antelope, sage thrasher, etc