Desert
Thanks for joining us!
This episode was written by Jean and voiced by Kara and T.
Episode art was drawn by Jean.
It was originally released in July 2025.
— We love these books about the desert —
Click on each photo for a link to the book on our Bookshop.org account
— Color with us! —
Color this picture, drawn by Jean, of the beautiful saguaro and its fellow desert creatures.
Click on the picture to download the file.
— Desert Episode Summary —
Deserts are dry, which impacts everything that lives there —
To understand why we have seasons, we have to think about our planet, Earth. You know that Earth is a sphere, shaped like a ball. And that it is made up of land and water.
Desert is a biome where very little rain falls. It is very dry in the desert.
They are the hottest places on earth during the day. But, at night, it can get cold there. And that is because there are usually no clouds in the sky that hold cooler water vapor.
I was surprised to learn that deserts can also be cold! Antarctica is a cold desert and so is the Arctic where the North Pole is located. Even though the ground is covered with ice it hardly ever snows!
Deserts have dry, rocky soil.
The land is mostly flat. Some places have rocky hills or dunes of sand. There can be dust storms if the weather gets windy.
And when it does rain, it is often a fast downpour that doesn’t last long. Usually there is a rainy season so it rains only during a few months of the year.
Because there is so little water, only special kinds of plants and animals can live in a desert. They have adaptations that help them to survive in such a difficult environment, which means they have special traits. And their adaptations are all about getting and keeping water.
The trees that can grow in the deserts are not very tall. Woody shrubs can grow and many grasses. But the plant most often seen in a desert is cactus.
Cacti thrive in the desert, especially the saguaro —
Cacti are plants that do very well in a place with little rain. A cactus has thick, waxy skin that helps them store water after it rains.
A cactus doesn’t have leaves, but has spines -like pointy sticks- which don’t lose water to evaporation.
The roots of a cactus are not deep under the ground and they spread out widely to collect any rainfall.
There is one type of cactus that is super cool that grows in the southern United States. It is called the saguaro cactus.
This type of cactus can grow to be r eally tall, as tall as your house even! And some can live for a very long time. Some have been known to live for 200 years! As they grow tall, they also grow arms which turn up and get tall as well.
Their shallow roots help them to catch any rain water. And they grow more rain roots when it rains, so they can catch more water.
It has folds/ribs, which allow the saguaro to spread out, or get wider, when it rains, so it can hold more water. In fact, the saguaro can hold so much water, that it can live for many months even if it doesn’t rain.
Saguaros are green in color, and their sharp spines are their protection because they keep animals from trying to take a bite.
In the spring, a saguaro has flowers and fruits that grow on the ends of the arms. Animals such as coyotes and bats eat the sweet red fruit. And people can harvest the fruits in the summer and use it for food. The juice is used to make delicious syrups. The seeds and flowers can be used to make jam.
Saguaro cacti are helpful for some animals. Woodpeckers of the desert use their strong, pointy beaks to peck holes in the stem, and they move into the hole for a nest. After the woodpecker family moves out, other animals move in, such as the small burrowing owls, or mice, bats, or insects. Birds also build nests between the arms of the saguaro which are high up, so they are safer. Also, some ground animals make their homes at the base of the large cactus where it is shady and where they can chew on the roots that hold water.
Animals in the desert —
Animals have also adapted in ways that that help them live in the very dry and usually very hot desert. Many of the animals are nocturnal, which means they’re awake at night and sleep during the day. And that is because it is so hot during the day they just sleep in their homes, which are usually underground or in a rock cavern. At night they come out to search for food when it is cooler.
Some animals just sleep a lot. They are dormant. There is a certain toad who just sleeps and sleeps and only after it rains does it wake up and goes out of its home to lay eggs in the puddles.
Many birds can live in deserts. Some are able to fly up high where the air is cooler. Others don’t fly much at all, but run on the ground to save energy. You may have heard of a “roadrunner”. Yup, that is a bird that doesn’t fly much.
Many kinds of reptiles are found in the deserts, such as snakes, lizards and desert tortoises. They like to sleep under rocks or buried in the soil. These animals are cold-blooded, which means that they need to feel warm air to warm up their bodies and be active. They like to lie out in the sun to warm up. We humans are warm-blooded!
There are fewer mammals in deserts than other places on Earth. They have to be able to stand the hot and dry environment. But the ones that live there are pretty interesting.
A special small fox called a Fennec Fox is has very large ears. This fox can cool itself by sending heat out through its ears. Long, thick, soft fur coats keep them warm at night and protect them from the hot sun during the day.
You may have seen pictures of camels, which is the animal I think of when I think of the desert. Camels are known for having humps on their backs. Actually, camels have two humps, and dromedaries have one hump. And that hump is important for its survival in the desert because it stores fat. That fat can be changed into energy when they don’t have other food. They manage with less water because their bodies don’t sweat much and they do not let out much urine (pee!).
Camels have leathery pad on their two-toed feet and elbows which won’t burn in hot sand. Their eyelashes are important too, because they are very long to keep dust and dirt away from their eyes. Plus, their eyes have an extra eyelid that sweep dust out like a windshield wiper. Cool, huh?
People in deserts —
You might be surprised to hear that people have been able to live in the desert for thousands of years. It is a pretty hard place, but people long ago found ways to live.
People in the desert have used all that nature offered. Many kinds of plants, such as agave and yucca provided food and medicine. Grasses were woven into baskets or made into roofs. Some smaller trees were used to build shelters. Animals such as camels were used to help haul things from place to place. And herds of sheep or goats were moved around by the people to always find food to eat.
Many towns and cities have been built up in desert environments. In these modern days, engineers have learned how to get water to towns. People have air conditioned houses and cars.
And there are many jobs for people to work at. Some places have ranches for keeping cattle and horses. And people are digging under the ground to find special minerals, which are natural resources that people use to make things. Mines are huge holes in the ground where the minerals are dug out. For example, copper is a metal found in the dry areas of the Earth. It is used in many household things such as pots, water pipes, roofing, and for electricity. Salt is another thing that can be found in a desert when water evaporates and leaves behind salt crystals.
Deserts on Earth —
Deserts are really interesting places. They are in every continent on our planet Earth.
The largest deserts are the cold ones in Antarctica and the Arctic.
The largest hot desert is the Sahara Desert, which is in Africa.
There is a lot of unused land in the Sahara and not a lot of clouds. It gets more sunshine than any other part of the Earth. That makes it a good place to capture the energy of the sun with solar panels. In the Sahara desert there are huge fields covered with solar panels, which capture the light of the sun and turn it into energy.