No need to drink water, this is an animal that can live well in the desert.

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The Sahara Desert covers 6% of the world’s land. Yet this vast and harsh place is home to the Fennec fox, the world’s smallest wild canid. This animal is capable of surviving in the desert without drinking water.

Desert Fox Sand-colored fur helps them to be less conspicuous when they come out of their hiding places to search for food. In addition, this small animal often zigzags, jumps and uses sand dunes to conceal its location.

When night falls, the sands that radiate heat during the day become frigid. Temperatures can plummet below freezing. The sudden cold is even worse than the heat. However, the desert fox’s thick coat of fur insulates it, allowing it to roam around at night foraging for food.

Desert foxes can withstand harsh desert living conditions. (Photo: Animalia).

Why don’t desert foxes need to drink water?

In fact, the small body of the desert fox does not need much food. But because they are omnivores, they can find all kinds of things around the desert to fill their hungry stomachs, such as insects, berries, roots, or even food scraps.

The desert is extremely harsh, there is food but no water. Fortunately, the desert fox’s kidneys are very efficient. It is also the only member of the canid family that does not need to drink water. Instead, the desert fox can get all the water it needs from the food it forages for.

In fact, desert foxes evolved when deserts first appeared. Therefore, apart from them, no other dog species can overcome the challenges of the desert.

Despite being only about the size of a walking boot and weighing only about 1 kg, the desert fox can survive well in the desert every day.

The Sahara contains millions of grains of sand. Each grain acts as a radiator. In fact, sand absorbs heat, and the hotter it gets, the more heat it radiates. Average temperatures in the desert can reach nearly 40 degrees Celsius.

In such hot conditions, the small size of the desert fox is very useful. Because their small bodies help them lose heat faster than larger bodies. Moreover, their fur is long, thick, soft with a downy undercoat, which helps protect them from the hot sun during the day.

The giant ears not only help the desert fox resist the heat but also help them easily detect prey. (Photo: Misfitanimals).

Additionally, to cool them down even faster, their large ears act like sophisticated air conditioners. Each desert fox’s ear has a network of capillaries that fill with blood as temperatures rise rapidly.

Not only do their huge ears help them stay cool, they also make them formidable nocturnal hunters. Their keen hearing helps them detect prey such as insects and reptiles in the dark.

In particular, desert foxes have another way to cool off. That is to stay in their burrows during the day. They are very familiar with their environment. Specifically, moisture often gathers at the foot of sand dunes, so the sand in the desert is firm enough to dig burrows. To avoid the intense heat of the Saharan Sun, desert foxes will choose to stay in their burrows and will come out to forage at night.

According to: Fatherland

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