|
|
|
|
|
|
||||
| Very
little rain falls in the desert, but some animals can still find enough
food and water to live in hot, dry places. Many insects, reptiles, mammals,
and birds make their homes in the desert. |
Even though these animals live in different parts of the desert, they often depend on each other for food. When animals eat other animals or plants, they become part of a food chain. | |||
 |
||||
 |
||||
| In the Arizona Desert, the tiny harvester ant is one of the links in a desert food chain. Harvester ants live in groups called colonies. Each colony can have up to twelve thousand ants living in it. |  |
|||
| Mesquite
(mess-keet) bushes grow in the same areas where the harvester ants live.
Harvester ants eat the seedpods from this bush. In fact, the pods
are their favorite food. |
 |
|||
| Another animal that lives in the desert is the horned lizard. This reptile is picky about food. It likes to eat ants and not much else -and harvester ants are at the top of the list. |  |
|||
| What eats a horned lizard? It's hard to imagine anything that would want to eat something so spiny. However, hawks, snakes, and foxes will all eat a horned lizard if they are really hungry. |  |
|||
|
||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
|
So,
you can see how this desert food chain works. Each link in the chain needs
the other parts to survive. If a farmer pulls out too many mesquite bushes,
the harvester ants won't have any food. Then
the horned lizards won't have any ants to eat. If the lizards leave to
look for ants in another area, a hawk or fox may have to go without a
meal. |
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
||