The Cold Desert
The difference between the Hot and Dry Desert and the Cold Desert is that the Cold Desert has snow in the winter. It never gets warm enough for plants to grow and survive there, but there are very grasses and mosses that grow there. They have to survive a long time without heat or sunlight, and the roots need to be able to reach down low to obtain water.
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Threats that Face the Desert
Unfortunatly, there are many threats that face the desert, which is bad because deserts cover about 1/5 of the World's surface. Off roading, which is driving on the desert surface-not on a road, is really harmful to the desert. It kills the plants that grow there, and plants in the desert take an extremely long time to grow, sometimes over a century or two. When the plants are killed, the soil under them is killed as well. This prevents the plants from ever being able to grow again, and when vegetation is killed off, the animals starve too. Off roading can also kill the many animals that burrow and hide in the sand. Cars just drive over them, because they cannot be seen from above ground. Off roading is extremely harmful to the desert, and should not be done.
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The Animals and Plants of the Desert
Since the desert is so difficult to survive in, there are not many plants or animals that live in it. However, some animals are the prairie dogs, the Jaguars, and Bobcats. Some plants are the Saguaro Cactus,mosses and many shrubs. The plants need to be able to store water during the long months of dry heat, and many of the animals need to burrow underground, because it is too hot for them to survive in the burning sun. The desert is a very extreme biome, but life is still able to flurish within it.
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