How do desert animals keep cool on a very hot day?

Answer 1

Depends which animal they are. For example, an elephant and a couple other animals would play in the water or mud. This also helps them prevent skin problems from the harsh sun or it can help prevent parasites.

Answer 2

There are many adaptations to a life in the desert (or more specifically a hot desert). One of the biggest adaptations is simply to be a nocturnal species. Even in a hot desert, the temperatures can drop below freezing at night, so an animal might make an underground burrow and sleep there till dusk and come out later. In that case they actually need to be adapted to the cold!

Another big adaptation is to have some way to lose excess heat, and a common method for that is having a large external surface area, often by way of the ears or folds in the skin. Jack rabbits, fennec foxes, elephants, and caracals all have large ears because the thin skin in their ears is full of blood vessels. The blood in their bodies cool down upon reaching their ears because it's easier to lose the heat through on thin layer of skin then through densely packed muscle. Elephants can also use their ears like a fan. Frilled lizards frills, in addition to frightening off predators also dissipate excess heat via a network of blood vessels in their frills.

Furred animals have fur on the undersides of their paws and growing between their toes to help protect their paw pads from searing desert sand and rock. Their fur covers their whole body to prevent sunburn, and provides insulation against both heat and cold. The skin of most desert creatures is tough and thick to prevent moisture loss.

even if the animal is not nocturnal they may spend a significant amount of time in shade under rocks and in crevices. lizards and snakes need to sun them selves to keep warm, but also need to find shade or burrow to keep cool because they're cold blooded.

Another way to keep cool is to absorb heat into a different part of the body. A camels hump in addition to storing fat also acts like a parasol and takes the brutal rays of the sun while keeping it there and away from the rest of the camel.

Most hot desert animals are light in color both to blend in with their often sandy or rocky surroundings, and to reflect the sunlight rather than absorb it like a darker coat would.

lastly, body heat is harder to get rid of and easier to retain if you're a large animal, and you also need more water, so most desert dwelling creatures are fairly small.

The heat is far from the only thing that a dessert animal has to contend with. they also have specific adaptations to help cope with the lack of water (camels have kidneys efficient enough to drink salty brackish water), and the terrain (which can vary from cracked earth, to rock, to sand). animals in a rocky environment will have narrower feet and often hooves to give them sure footing and balance. In a sandy dessert animals often have wide or splayed feet to distribute their weight and keep from sinking, and snakes sidewind, and keeping the fine grains of sand out of eyes and ears and noses is important so they're often covered with hair, flaps of skin, lenses, or in the case of reptile ears can be internal. Often animals have places on their body to store nutrients (a camels hump), or a place to keep water (tortoises can keep water in a special bladder for when they need it). Birds such as vultures take advantage of the heat currents to soar for long distances without flapping, so their wingspan is very broad. in order to sense things from their high altitude, both their vision and sense of smell is excellent.

Answer 3

long eyelashes to protect from sandstorms

sand colored skin for camoflauge

Answer 4

Many animals in the desert stay in a burrow during the day and only emerge after dark when it is cooler.