Tag archives for desert
Geography in the News: Australian Fires Out of Control
Posted by Neal Lineback of Maps101.com and Maps.com on January 9, 2013 
By Neal Lineback and Mandy Lineback Gritzner, Appalachian State University Raging Australian Wildfires Australia is under siege by raging out-of-control wildfires. The fires are being blamed on the continent’s long droughts. Most of its climates are relatively dry ones anyway, but Australia’s long series of droughts has created dry conditions even in its humid climatic…
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Kenya’s common warthog, thought to only be active during the day, appears to have ‘swapped’ its strictly diurnal lifestyle for a nocturnal one. In the desert environment of central northern Kenya, food is scarce and there is no drinking water for several months at a time.
Yvonne de Jong and her team are in search of the desert warthog and common warthog- yes, the lovable ‘Pumba’ from the ‘Lion King’- in northern Kenya.
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I’m not entirely convinced this isn’t a death march. It’s high noon in the oldest desert on earth. Glancing down at the red sand to see a beetle burrowing back under, saving itself from the scorching heat, I’m transported to a long lost nature program viewed from the comfort of a ‘70s wood-paneled family room…
Posted by The rock towers, canyons, basins, petrified dunes, stone arches, sand pipes, and other geology formations of America’s desert Southwest are a marvel of the planet. Spread over hundreds of thousands of acres and encompassed for the large part in numerous parks and monuments — including icons such as the Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zion, and Canyonlands…
Photo courtesy USFWS The inch-long iridescent blue Devil’s Hole pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis) rebounded this fall to 126 adult fish, 34 more than last fall’s count and the highest number recorded since 2004, the Associated Press reported last week. “We’re feeling like we’re at least maintaining the population,” Bob Williams, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service field…
Like the sandworms of the planet Blenjeel in “Star Wars,” the real-world sandfish moves rapidly under desert sand to ambush surface prey it detects from vibrations. A species of skink (Scincus scincus), the sandfish moves as quickly through sand as a fish moves through water. It grows to about six inches (fifteen centimeters) long and…
