Posted By admin on October 1, 2008

Sahara Desert

Three native plants and animals in the sahara desert ?

ok, so im doing an assignment on ecosytems and i chose to do the sahara desert.
I looked everywhere and i cant semm to find native plants and animals. I need atleast 3 for each.

Here is page entry from Wikipedia:
Flora and fauna

Dromedary camels and goats are the most domesticated animals found in the Sahara. Because of its qualities of endurance and speed, the dromedary is the favorite animal used by nomads.
The Leiurus quinquestriatus (aka deathstalker) scorpion which can be 10 cm (3.9 in) long. Its venom contains large amounts of agitoxin and scyllatoxin and is very dangerous; however, a sting from this scorpion rarely kills a healthy adult.
The monitor lizard. It has been suggested that the occasional habit of varanids to stand on their two hind legs and to appear to "monitor" their surroundings led to the original Arabic name waral ورل, which is translated to English as "monitor".[32]
Sand vipers, which average less than 50 cm (20 in) in length. Many have a pair of horns, one over each eye. Active at night, they usually lie buried in the sand with only their eyes visible. Bites are painful, but rarely fatal.
The African Wild Dog has some populations confirmed in the southern Sahara.[33] or perhaps only 14 countries.[34].
The fennec fox, pale fox and Rüppell's fox, are omnivorous canids living in many parts of Sahara.
The hyrax. It first appears in the fossil record over 40 million years ago, and for many millions of years hyraxes were the primary terrestrial herbivore in Africa.
The ostrich which is a flightless bird native to Africa. They have become rare.
The addax, a large white antelope, is a threatened species. Adapted to the desert, they can remain months without drinking, even a whole year.
The Saharan cheetah lives in Algeria, Togo, Niger, Mali, Benin, and Burkina Faso. There remain less than 250 mature cheetahs which are very cautious, fleeing any human presence. The cheetah avoids the sun from April to October. It then seeks the shelter of shrubs such as balanites and acacias. They are unusually pale.[35][36]
The dorcas gazelle is a north African gazelle that can also go for a long time without water.
There exist other animals in the Sahara (birds in particular) such as African Silverbill and Black-throated Firefinch among others.
The central Sahara is estimated to include only five hundred species of plants, which is extremely low considering the huge extent of the area. Plants such as acacia trees, palms, succulents, spiny shrubs, and grasses have adapted to the arid conditions, either by reducing water loss or storing water. Plant leaves may dry out totally and then recover. Human activities are more likely to affect the habitat in areas of permanent water (oases) or where water comes close to the surface. Here, the local pressure on natural resources can be intense. The remaining populations of large mammals have been greatly reduced by hunting for food and recreation. In recent years development projects have started in the deserts of Algeria and Tunisia using irrigated water pumped from underground aquifers. These schemes often lead to soil degradation and salinization.

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