Desert animals how have desert animals adapted to their environment

Cold desert
Arctic Fox - Covered in thick white fur, these foxes live in the cold deserts in Greenland, Russia, Canada, and Scandinavia.
Musk Oxen - The Musk Oxen is a herd animal that lives in the Arctic tundra of northern Canada and Greenland.
Lemming - Lemmings are small rodents that live in the snowy tundra. Unlike other mammals in the cold, they don’t hibernate and are active all year round.
Polar Bear - Polar Bears live on the Arctic Tundra, which is a desert. They live closest to the sea ice to hunt for food.
Caribou - The Caribou is a large deer species that live in the Arctic Tundra. They dig at the frozen ground with their hooves to look for food, such as moss.

How have desert animals adapted to their environment?
Did you know that there’s a specific word for animals that have adapted to live in the harsh climate of a hot desert? These animals are called a ‘xerocole’ and it means ‘animals that thrive in the desert’.
To live in a desert, animals must be able to cope with extreme heat or cold and the lack of water. Over thousands of years, these animals have adapted specific traits which help them to survive (and thrive) in these environments. This process is called adaptation. Every species adapts differently, but each adaptation has one purpose: to aid in survival.
Nocturnal species
Since hot deserts have scorching temperatures during the day, many animal species have adapted to only being active at night when it’s much cooler. They avoid the sun’s harsh heat by sleeping during the day and searching for food during the night. These are some examples of nocturnal desert animals:

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  Bobcats
  
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  Kangaroo rats (and most other small rodents)
  
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  Fennec foxes
  
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  Scorpions
  
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  Owls
  

These are even some animals that are only active at dawn and dusk - these are called crepuscular animals. These times of day are cooler and there is still some light left for animals to see to avoid predators and find food. Some crepuscular animals are:

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  Coyotes
  
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  Porcupines
  
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  Jackrabbits
  
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  Mule deer
  

Saving Water
Water is scarce in the desert. This means desert animals have adapted to conserve water in their bodies or to simply survive on less than other animals would in other habitats.
Scorpions and wolf spiders have a thick outer coating covering over their bodies which reduces moisture loss, so they can get more out of the water they drink.
Camels can also survive a long time without drinking water - sometimes even six or seven months! Instead, they can ingest liquid from the plants they eat. You might think that they store water in their humps too, but this isn’t strictly true. Their humps are actually filled with fat, but they can draw on the reserves in their humps when food or water is scarce.
Big Ears
Fennec foxes don’t have those huge, bat-like ears for no reason; they help to keep them cool in the desert. The size of their ears helps to release more heat and regulates their body temperature. They have another purpose too: they have excellent hearing to hear prey that live underground.

Tails for Shade
There’s not much shelter in the desert for animals that are active during the day, and that’s exactly why animals like the Cape Ground Squirrel use their big bushy tails to shade themselves from the sun.