Surviving Dune: How Desert Animals Stave Off Death | Arabian Inferno 103

The Arabian Desert’s one of the most challenging places on earth, but the animals here are resilient and specialized. Even for the hardiest inhabitants, death’s never far away. Creatures must seize every opportunity to find food, shelter and water. Adaptability’s the key dune survival.

The vast sand dunes of Arabia’s interior are home to an icon, and animal sometimes cited as original inspiration for the unicorn. The Arabian oryx. Living in a small herd, the oryx start their day warming up in the early sun, but as the heat intensifies, they’ll have to alter their behaviour to stay cool, trekking to search of food and water. Young calves in the group will have to keep up with the adults, learning from them as they go, inheriting the skills they’ll need to survive.

They’re not alone in their struggles. The most famous masters of the desert, camels, also patrol the dunes with their young. Among the most adapted animals, they have fatty humps to store food, and dense curly fur that reflects the heat.

Camels and oryx don’t have to worry about the local predators, the Ruppell’s fox and the elusive sand cat, which prefer to hunt the local rodents. Both have big ears and hairy feet to help them cope on the scalding sand. They prefer to come out at night forage, and are joined by another predator, a horned viper, that hunts gerbils, stabbing them with lethal venom.

At dawn and the cast of characters’ changes again, reptiles emerge to bask and warm up. The key to survival here is adaptability, and none are more shaped by the desert than the sand skink. Its smooth body, tiny legs and fish-like scales allow it to ‘swim’ through the dunes. The ultimate desert specialist.

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