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Gray Foxes, Rattlesnakes, and Other Mysterious Animals of the Extreme Deserts
Exploring the desert is an unforgettable experience. Most days there is not a cloud to shade the blazing sun. Within minutes, exposed skin shows signs of sunburn. Even the sunlight reflected from the ground damages the skin. Hundreds of animal species live in the desert, big and small. How do they survive with so little water, the extreme heat, and a limited, and sometimes toxic, food supply? Author Ana Maria Rodríguez explores many of the amazing animals in this extreme environment.
* Reviews *
Spiders, snakes, camels, emus, jackrabbits and kangaroo rats are just a few of the hundreds of living and breathing desert-dwellers. Comprising one-fifth of the land area on Earth, deserts exist in Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas. As much about deserts as animals, this book covers topics such as the development of deserts as well as the way in which animals adapt to a lack of rain and vegetation. The reader learns that deserts are more than dunes and heat; three-fourths of them are covered with soil, gravel, or small pebbles. With up to eighty percent of an animals body weight consisting of water it is clear that some source of moisture is needed. A beetle may get his water through fog, while a coyote digs three feet down, and a roadrunners thirst is quenched by a steady diet of mice. Well written and filled with interesting facts and photographs, the book will appeal to anyone with a thirst for knowledge. Rodrguezs research proves that a desert is anything but deserted., Children's Literature
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Grades
5-7 IL
Grades
5-9 GRL
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