🏜️ Desert animals
A desert is a place where very little rain falls. Many are hot by day and cold at night. Desert animals save water: some never drink and get it all from food, some hide in burrows through the heat and come out at night, and some have big ears that let heat out.
The biggest and the smallest here: the ostrich and the Mojave desert tortoise
9 animals here
- Red kangaroo
- Meerkat
- Fennec fox
- Pronghorn
- Ostrich
- Greater roadrunner
- Gila monster
- Mojave desert tortoise
- Coyote
Red kangaroo
Meerkat
Fennec fox
Pronghorn
Ostrich
Greater roadrunner
Gila monster
Mojave desert tortoise
CoyoteRecord holders here
- Fastest: the pronghorn, 55 mph89 km/h1
- Heaviest: the ostrich, 198 to 300 lb90 to 136 kg2
- Lives longest: the Mojave desert tortoise, 50 to 80 years50 to 80 years3
Desert animals for kids, A to Z
- 🐺 Coyote: A clever wild dog whose yips and howls fill the night.
- 🦊 Fennec fox: The smallest fox, with giant ears that help it stay cool.
- 🦎 Gila monster: One of the few venomous lizards, and it stores fat in its tail.
- 🐦 Greater roadrunner: A kind of cuckoo that runs across the desert instead of flying.
- 🦡 Meerkat: One meerkat stands guard on its back legs while the family eats.
- 🐢 Mojave desert tortoise: It spends most of its life in underground burrows, away from desert heat.
- 🐦 Ostrich: The biggest bird alive: it cannot fly, but it runs very fast.
- 🦌 Pronghorn: The fastest land animal in North America, and not a real antelope.
- 🦘 Red kangaroo: The biggest animal that hops, carrying its baby in a pouch.
- National Park Service, Badlands, checked 30 October 2026.
- Smithsonian's National Zoo, Ostrich, checked 30 October 2026.
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, species profile, checked 30 October 2026.