It is often said that the Sahara Desert is inhospitable to all living creatures. This is not particularly true as becomes evident when one looks at the history of the Sahara Desert.

Creatures of the Sahara Desert

The Sahara Desert, located on the continent of Africa, is the world's largest hot desert. With a size that is comparable to the size of the entire United States, the Sahara comprises a major part of the landscape in Africa. The land here is not exactly friendly to those creatures that would choose it for a home, and in the Sahara Desert they have to be rugged and well-evolved in order to survive. Although most of the Sahara Desert is made up of bleak hamada (rocky terrain that is compact and formed into plateaus), there are enough spots of oasis and other landforms to allow the creatures to find a home.

One of the most important of the Sahara Desert life forms is actually man. Around 2.5 million people call the Sahara Desert their home, with most of this population being centered in Egypt, Morocco, Mauritania and Algeria. The largest city within the Sahara Desert region is Cairo, the capital city of Egypt. The Sahara is home to many different types of African peoples, from Berber tribes to Moors and various ??black African?? ethnicities. Man is undoubtedly the most adaptive of species, so what about the Sahara Desert creatures that don't have the capacity to build homes and use technology to withstand the extreme heat?

One of the types of creatures that were once seen in the Sahara Desert may surprise you. The Sahara was not always the very dry place it is today; in fact, after the last ice age, there is evidence that the area was quite wet. There have been over 30,000 petroglyphs (primitive drawings) of life forms such as crocodiles found in the area of the Sahara that is now completely arid. Dinosaur fossils were also found in the Sahara, meaning that there had to be at least a minimal water source here at the time of these large land lizards.

More recently (but still over 8000 years ago), some of the most populous Sahara Desert creatures were cattle. Predynastic Egyptians used to herd cattle through the Sahara and allow them to graze on what vegetation was available. Today, many smaller life forms populate the Sahara, such as gerbils, hares, the desert hedgehog, gazelles and foxes. Additionally, there are over 300 migratory bird species that call this area home. The Sahara is far from a dry and animal-free climate ?C many different creatures call this place home.