What is the desert? From films and school lessons, I recall the vast territories covered with an incredible layer of sand, which reliably hid treasures under its thickness, and unlucky travelers, and cities that were not lucky enough to be in her way. Actually, this is almost the case - the word “desert” is similar to the word “emptiness”, and only rare oases dilute the lifeless monochrome space. But is it as lifeless as it seems at first glance?
If we say that the desert can walk, then it will be almost one hundred percent true, and the “legs” were attached to it by the man himself. Climate change and deforestation are two desert "prostheses" on which it very deftly waddles through arable land, each year capturing more than 45,000 square miles of fertile soil, turning it into a lifeless thing on which only cacti can coexist - despite the fact that the dunes “walk” only 20 meters per year. This, in turn, can bring trouble to almost a billion people and 110 countries of different continents, so here and there you can use the phrase "Cut down a tree - killed a man" as a banner at a rally against deforestation.
Of course, I'm exaggerating (in terms of transparency). How do people survive in the desert? And they travel there, and stop for the night, and the path can stretch for several weeks, or even months. Travelers prepare in advance for all the nuances and difficulties: the desert will not forgive even a small mistake. I suggest you get to know this unique world a little on a short excursion - you never know where life can lead, even in theory?
Sand Demon Song
A desert is a desert, so that there is practically no precipitation in it, but their absence is more than compensated for by other natural phenomena that are not found anywhere else on the planet, in any climatic zone, or they are so unusual that they look like something mystical. For example, fog is a frequent visitor to the Namib Desert. Sometimes it is so dense that it can hang over the sands for days on end, “ignoring” the heat and the installation that there should be no moisture in the desert. In Namib, it only falls out - in the form of fog.
Rumor has it that there is also a "dry" fog - a dusty suspension in the air that occurs in minutes of complete calm. Small dust particles create a thick curtain, which is in no way inferior in density to water fog - in it, you can just go astray. In the absence of landmarks, and, God forbid, a compass, this veil can be fatal. Although, what can a traveler in the desert do without a compass?
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Another “hint” that the planet does not ignore these godforsaken territories and yet sometimes sends a cloud full of moisture in their direction, and that, as expected, scatters over the dunes in myriads of tiny drops - rain. Only because of the high temperature, he has a very small chance of flying to the sand, and low humidity even cancels it.
As for the unique phenomena, they include the "singing" of the dunes. Amazing, sometimes frightening sounds put to flight the nomads, who believed that it was a sand demon singing, and hurried to retreat from the dangerous area. According to legend, it is impossible to stop in order to listen to his song to the end under no circumstances: the demon does not love the audience, and deprives them of their mind, leaving an absolutely helpless, insane person in the middle of the hot sands. What fate awaits the one who has lost his mind in such an area, one can only guess.
This "chanting" can be heard as the sand falls down the crest of a dune: in 2009 this fact was experimentally proven. Only the difference in the sound remained incomprehensible: it was all like the low notes of a cello, but both the volume and tonality were different. When samples were taken, it turned out that the tone depends on the size, and the volume depends on the uniformity of the sand. True, scientists have not been able to fully solve this mystery: if they found out that the sounds emit vibrations of moving grains of sand, then how they are synchronized into one note, have not yet been determined.
And, of course, snow! What could be more unexpected than snow in the desert? And, meanwhile, in the Sahara, it was observed as many as three times over the past four decades. The first documented case occurred in 1979 - it was provided by a cold European front, the second - in 2016, however, it melted very quickly, and the nomads did not have time to feel all the “horror” of the impending real winter, frost, snow women and the same angels. And finally, in 2018: the Algerians witnessed a real blizzard, which for an hour gave the residents of Ain Sefre, who were not familiar with winter, a 5- and 40-centimeter snow cover in the city and outside its walls, respectively.
Spiny devil, armored tangle and unknown monsters
The desert is a place where you need to adapt to life. However, skill will not hurt anywhere, but, say, on a tropical island, under the shade of palm trees, surrounded by bananas and drinking water, you can almost relax. This will not work in the desert: if you want to live, be able to spin. And many representatives of the fauna know how, and how! The inhabitants of the desert are very diverse, and one cannot help wondering - how do these animals manage to exist here? That's how.
Take, for example, the terrible beast from the Australian sands - the Moloch, nicknamed the thorny devil for its frightening appearance, and reaching as much as 22 centimeters in length. The "fiend of hell" feeds on a strict diet - exclusively black ants, which easily stick to the tongue with suckers, and the fact that he stole someone's water supplies cannot be blamed at all - the Molokh does not drink water from the word "absolutely" … The lizard collects moisture from the skin, and then water droplets flow to the edges of its mouth through microscopic tubules, and are swallowed as needed or needed. It is noteworthy that the milk that "absorbed" water becomes heavier by almost a third!
There is also an animal with reverse "glory" in the desert - a frilled battleship native to the Argentine deserts. In a few seconds, this creature is able to completely bury itself in the ground if it suddenly feels danger, or run away from the enemy in a safe direction - there is no problem with speed either. the carapace does not look like the armor of fellows in appearance: rather thin and soft, it is not really able to protect from anything, but it does not interfere with curling up into a tight ball and “swimming” in the desert, raking up the sand with powerful clawed paws. Throughout its life, this armadillo shows only nocturnal activity: it hunts, feeds, meets, and so on. The animal spends its “free” time from important matters in the safest, in his opinion, place - underground.
Scientists are unlikely to have included absolutely all desert inhabitants in the list of famous animals, but they completely refuse to listen to the stories of local residents and travelers about creatures that more resemble people from ancient legends than real inhabitants of the modern world. The old-timers of the Sahara from generation to generation pass on legends about huge reptiles, whose body length exceeds three dozen meters, and which are able to easily swallow not only a cow - even a person. However, in my opinion, it is more difficult to swallow a cow, and reptiles do not care about the moral component - who can be allowed for dinner, and who is the king of nature. No claws, no fangs - a person has no chance against a hefty python. The cow does too. But, fortunately, all this has not yet been (I hope that later) been proven, and the words of travelers about the slain scaly giants are not clear what kind,which they supposedly saw in the desert with their own eyes, official science does not take seriously.
Deadly Fata Morgana
Meteorologists are not asleep, and most of the anomalies have already been disclosed, studied, decomposed and archived. But there are others who do not want to “explain themselves.” For example, some types of mirages.
From time immemorial, lone travelers and whole caravans, whose guides believed in the unstable landscape, and not common sense and proven maps, perished in the sands, leaving behind mirages. Truly, the desert is dangerous, but not by demons and jinn, but by man’s faith in what he wants to see. Eyes longing for moisture are playing a cruel joke, and now travelers see not a real landscape, but a marvelous oasis, or a castle, or a city - you never know what is capable of projecting a sultry world! Those who lost their way in the desert and failed to return to it are doomed. In the Sahara there were so many victims due to mirages that the guides even made a map, where one hundred and fifty dangerous places were marked with an indication of the mirages appearing there.
It cannot be said that scientists bypass the topic of mirages: no matter how ghostly and unreal they may seem, the death of people due to being misled by the mockery of nature is quite tangible, and therefore they cannot be ignored. The research began when it was possible to somehow systematize the mirages: the lower ones, reminiscent of water, the upper ones, appearing high in the sky, and fata morgana, which was never really explained, were identified, which is too complex an optical phenomenon. It is believed that the influence of heat and other “desert” reasons is to blame, they say, because of their combination, there is a deception of sight. But a mirage shows an object at such a distance, which is simply beyond the reach of human vision. Probably, in order for the scientific world to sleep peacefully, let it remain so for the time being an ordinary optical illusion.