17 Desert Animals and Their Amazing Adaptations

African Bullfrog

It’s not often you can find a frog that can thrive in deserts and even mountains with elevations of 4,000 feet. The second-largest frog on the African continent, the African bullfrog, has its own ways of beating the heat, including burying itself until the weather improves.

During hot, dry weather, the bullfrog can burrow into the ground and lie dormant in estivation. It sloughs off the skin, forming a cocoon to hold in the body’s moisture and absorb water stored in the bladder. It can lie in this hibernationlike state for long periods—even longer than a year—during which it can lose as much as 38% of its body weight.

When the rains arrive, the African bullfrog returns to the surface to feed and breed. It can eat anything small enough to fit in its mouth, from birds to rodents to other frogs.

Costa’s Hummingbird

The Costa’s hummingbird can escape the heat of the hottest summer days by migrating to chaparral or scrub habitats. Meanwhile, when overnight temperatures plummet, the hummingbird enters a state of torpor, slowing its heart rate from its usual 500 to 900 beats per minute to just 50, thus conserving energy.

The little bird gets all the water it needs from the nectar and insects it feeds on, though it doesn’t mind taking a sip when a water source is available.

Sand Cat

This adorable sand cat is practically a cartoon character—small, cute, and equipped with superpowers for living in the desert. Found in northern Africa and central and southwest Asia, this is the only felid that lives in a sandy desert habitat.

The sand cat’s ears are big and set low, which helps protect it from windblown sand and locate prey hiding underground. Its thickly furred paws help it cope with the extremes of hot and cold sand. Indeed, the sand cat can tolerate temperatures from 23 degrees to 126 degrees Fahrenheit. To escape the extreme temperatures, sand cats take up residence in burrows abandoned by foxes or rodents, enlarging them as needed with their powerful but blunt claws.

The cats are active during the day in winter and are nocturnal during the summer.

Arabian Oryx

This herbivore has a white coat to reflect the sunlight of the day, while its dark legs help absorb heat during cold desert mornings. It can sense rain over long distances and can find fresh grasses and plants, and will even eat roots when no other forage is available. It feeds during dawn and late afternoon, resting in shaded areas during the midday heat.

As for water, the Arabian oryx can go for days and sometimes even weeks without a significant drink. It gets its water from the plants it eats.

Arabian Wolf

The Arabian wolf is a subspecies of gray wolf that has adapted to live in impressively harsh desert conditions. This 40-pound wolf has a long coat in winter to insulate it against freezing temperatures. While it has a shorter coat in the summer, the longer fur remains along its back to help protect against the heat of the sun.

The wolf also has extra-large ears to help disperse body heat. To escape the most extreme temperatures, it will dig deep dens and rest in the shade.

The Arabian wolf lives a mostly solitary life and preys on anything from small birds, reptiles, and hares to larger animals like gazelles and ibexes. It cannot go entirely without water, so it sticks to gravel plains and the fringes of the desert.

Desert Hedgehog

One of the cutest residents of any desert is the desert hedgehog, found in Africa and the Middle East. Adapted to live in desert and arid scrub habitats, this species of is one of the smallest hedgehogs, reaching only about five to nine inches long. It survives the heat by escaping into its burrow during day and hunting at night.

The desert hedgehog eats everything from insects and invertebrates to bird eggs, snakes, and scorpions. It can go for long periods without water because it stays hydrated through its prey.

Snow Leopard

Perhaps one of the most celebrated inhabitants of the Gobi desert, among other areas of inner Asia, is the snow leopard. Its high-altitude home is one of the toughest places to survive, but the snow leopard does so with grace. Its large chest allows it to get enough oxygen from thin mountain air, while its large nasal cavities help warm the air before it hits the lungs.

The leopard’s massive paws and extra long tail help it navigate the rocky terrain with excellent balance, and its long, thick coat keeps it warm in freezing temperatures.

Jerboa

This tiny kangaroolike rodent native to desert climes across North Africa, China, and Mongolia. Jerboas inhabit deserts across the world, from the Sahara, the hottest, to the Gobi, one of the coldest. At either extreme, you can find a member of the jerboa family happily burrowing beneath the ground.

These burrowing systems help the jerboa escape extreme temperatures. It has short forearms and well-built hind legs made for digging and folds of skin that can close off its nostrils to sand.

This little creature also has specialized hairs to keep sand from getting in its ears. Its long back legs allow it to travel rapidly using minimal energy. Jerboas can get all the water they need from the vegetation and insects they eat. In fact, in laboratory studies, jerboas have lived off of only dry seeds for up to three years.

Sonoran Pronghorn

Pronghorn, the fastest land animal in North America, can be found across the continent. However, Sonoran pronghorns have adapted to live in a particularly challenging environment. They can eat and digest plants that other herbivores won’t touch, including dry grasses and even cactuses. They have teeth with particularly high crowns to handle abrasive foods and have a four-part stomach to extract as many nutrients as possible.

Their hollow hairs trap heat to insulate them against freezing night temperatures, but they can also raise patches of hair to release trapped heat and cool off on hot days. Though amazingly adapted for desert environments, more frequent and prolonged droughts due to climate change may be more than the species can handle. Only around 160 Sonoran pronghorn remain in the wild in the United States.

Meerkats

Being well-adapted for the demanding habitat, meerkats have become iconic figures of the Kalahari desert. They get a good deal of water from their diets of insects, snakes, scorpions, roots, and tubers.

Meerkats make use of burrow systems for escaping predators and harsh weather. They can close their ears to keep sand out and have a third eyelid to protect their eyes. The dark coloration around their eyes further protects them by reducing the glare of the sun, so they have a better chance of spotting danger.

Kalahari Lions

The Kalahari lion is a subspecies of African lion specially adapted to its desert environment. Physically, it has longer legs and leaner bodies, and males have much darker manes. Kalahari lions have more endurance, and they need it. Living in smaller groups, these lions lay claim to larger territories and dine on smaller prey, from antelope to porcupines to birds.

Kalahari lions have a stronger resistance to thirst; they can go for two weeks without drinking water, relying just on prey to meet their moisture needs. They cool down their blood by panting and sweating through the pads of their paws.

Couch’s Spadefoot Toad

This little toad has adapted better to desert conditions than any other amphibian in North America. Couch’s spadefoot toad survives by doing, well, mostly nothing. It enters a state of estivation while waiting for the rainy season. The Couch’s spadefoot toad typically estivates for eight to 10 months per year, but it can stay in its burrow for twice that long if conditions are especially dry.

When rain does appear, the toads head straight for newly formed ponds. They can lay eggs within the first two days of reappearing, and tadpoles can hatch within 15 to 36 hours. It can take as little as nine days for the tadpoles to transform. The rush is vital because, in the desert, ponds dry up fast. Adults have to eat as many insects as they can before digging a burrow to nap for the next eight to 10 months.

Desert Bighorn Sheep

An icon of the rugged landscape of the western United States, the bighorn sheep can go for weeks without visiting a permanent water source, getting the water it needs from food and rainwater found in small rock puddles. It also uses its horns to split open barrel cacti and eat the watery flesh.

When green grasses are available, bighorn sheep don’t need to drink at all. However, during summer, they need to drink water every few days. They can tolerate losing up to 20% of their body weight in water and bounce back quickly from dehydration. By being able to survive for long periods away from a steady source of water, they can also better avoid predators.

Desert bighorn sheep can survive slight body temperature fluctuations, unlike many other mammals, which helps them thrive in such extreme heat and cold.

Elf Owl

An owl is a creature you might not expect to see in a desert, but the elf owl is quite at home in hot, sandy environments. These tiny owls are minuscule, standing only about five inches tall, and yet they’re tough enough to capture and dine on scorpions, among other prey.

Found in riparian areas of the Sonoran desert in the western U.S., elf owls escape the heat of the day by resting in tree cavities or holes in saguaro cacti left abandoned by woodpeckers. They hunt at night, using their exceptional low-light vision. By getting enough water from the food they consume, they can survive in areas that entirely lack surface water sources.

Pallid Bat

Bats are an important part of any ecosystem, but not just any bat can handle the tough environment of a desert. Found in western North America and in Cuba, the pallid bat prefers dry habitats of grassland, scrub desert. It has even been spotted in Death Valley.

The pallid bat is unique among bat species because it has the ability to control its body temperature, matching its internal temperature with its environment during winter hibernation and rest to conserve energy.

Also unique among bats is this species’ preference for catching prey on the ground; it almost never catches prey in midair, as other insectivorous bats do. Instead, it will swoop down on prey, capture it, and carry it to a more convenient location to eat. Though some desert dwellers get all the water they need from their prey, the pallid bat does need a water source nearby.

Ring-Tailed Cat

The ring-tailed cat, or ringtail, is a foxlike nocturnal animal about the size of a cat with a tail similar to raccoons. This animal is most closely related to the infamous «trash panda» and has been nicknamed the «miner’s cat» because it’s often found in rocky outcroppings and mine shafts.

It can scale anything from cliffs to cacti, rotating its hind feet 180 degrees for excellent grip with their semi-retractable claws. Their climbing repertoire also includes parkour-type ricocheting between distant objects and stemming up tight spaces.

The species makes its home in the western U.S., including in Arizona’s Sonoran desert. As is wise when living in harsh conditions, the ringtail will eat just about anything, from fruit to insects to reptiles to small mammals, and it is active at night to escape the midday sun. It can survive without water if its diet provides enough moisture, but it prefers living near a water source.

Fennec Fox

The fennec fox lives in the deserts of North Africa. This nocturnal omnivore has enormous ears, which can be as large as one-quarter of its entire body length. These help the animal cool down by releasing heat from the blood that circulates through them. It also has a thick fur coat that keeps it warm on frigid nights, and the fur covering its paws protects it from the hot sand while also helping it to keep from sinking into the soft sand.

The fennec fox eats plants, eggs, insects, and pretty much anything else it finds. It can survive without access to free-standing water, thanks in part to kidneys adapted to minimize water loss.