Article 7: Planet Earth: Deserts

Written by George Fenton

Seen 5/11/15

In this rendition of Fentons work, He turns his attention to deserts and the life found few
and far between inside. The life in this episode is very exclusive because the hardships required
to live in the desert. The show starts out in the Gobi Desert and with the Bactrian camel. This is
an extraordinary camel that lives it entire life in the freezing desert. With such cold temperatures
these camels eat snow instead of storing massive amounts of water in their systems. Its
important that they only eat a little snow at a time because eating enough snow in such a short
period of time could be fatal. Planet Earth also covered the Australian Outback; largely
considered the most arid location on the planet. In it they covered the Red Kangaroo. This
kangaroo is forced to find shelter under trees while the sun is up and must lick their forearms to
cool their blood down and avoid a heart stroke, but to do this they must use up quite a bit of their
fluids, and in the Outback its essential to store up as much liquid as one can. The story then
deviated to Death Valley, the hottest place on Earth. Even though its indisputable that this place
is a wasteland, on the few rare occasions that it has rained, the valley becomes alive with a flurry
of plant life. All the seeds that had blown into the valley and had been stuck suddenly bloom to
life in full bloom of the raging sun. This simply proves that life can exist anywhere, even a place
called Death Valley. Which is why I included it in my portfolio. The biggest question that arose
from this installment of Planet Earth would be why do animals adapt as they do? Most of the
species in these deserts are holding on by a thread and they would probably be better off if their
adaptations were more helpful.