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News articles on Deserts

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Mongabay.com news articles on Deserts in blog format. Updated regularly.

World's rarest camel survived nuclear tests but today threatened by hunger for its meat

(08/24/2009) Camels are among the most recognizable animals on the planet, yet few realize that wild populations are at a high risk of extinction. Of the world's two camel species, the Dromedary camel, characterized by a single hump, has already gone extinct in the wild. The second species, the two-humped Bactrian camel, was on a similar trajectory until very recently, but still less than 1,000 of the world's 1.4 million Bactrians are wild. The abundance of domesticated Bactrian camels relative to wild camels doesn’t address the question of whether it matters if another species of camels goes extinct. John Hare, founder and director of the Wild Camel Protection Foundation, argues that it does. Hare says the world will be a poorer place if wild Bactrian camels are allowed to follow their cousins into the sunset.


Photos: Rarest cheetah photographed for the first time

(02/23/2009) With only 250 individuals left the Saharan Cheetah is on the brink of extinction. Little-studied, this imperiled subspecies has been photographed for the fist time by scientists from by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and Office du Parc National de l’Ahaggar (OPNA) using camera traps. “The Saharan cheetah is critically endangered, yet virtually nothing is known about the population, so this new evidence, and the ongoing research work, is hugely significant,” said Dr Sarah Durant, a Senior Research Fellow with ZSL.


Mirrors in the desert may fight global warming

(12/23/2008) Heat reflecting sheets in arid regions could cool climate by increasing Earth's reflectivity or albedo, argue scientists writing in the International Journal of Global Environmental Issues.


Two new species of gecko discovered in Australia

(10/31/2008) Two species of gecko have been discovered in the southern deserts of Western Australia and South Australia, report researchers from the Western Australian Museum.


Two new species of eyeless albino millipede found in Arizona

(03/05/2007) A newly discovered genus of millipede may shed light on the poorly understood cave ecosystems of the desert southwest. J. Judson Wynne, with the Department of Biological Sciences at Northern Arizona University (NAU) and cave research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey's Southwest Biological Center, and Kyle Voyles, Arizona State Cave Coordinator for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), collected the two previously unknown millipede species in caves on opposite sides of the Grand Canyon.

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