The Kalahari Desert occupies the majority of Botswana and extends into various other surrounding countries such as Namibia, and South Africa. The Kalahari Basin covers a total area of about 2.5 million square kilometres. The Kalahari has a very harsh climate but is still home to a number of different animals. The amount of water, temperature and availability of food are all conditions that exist in the Kalahari Desert, requiring the meerkat and gerbil to have special adaptions to survive these conditions. With not always a lot of water the Kalahari is a harsh environment, only inhabited by those animals that have adapted to handle the hot, arid conditions. The varying amounts of water means the meerkat and gerbil both need special adaptions …show more content…
The availability of food differs from region to region, while in the drier parts of the desert, food is quite scarce. The availability of food varies between summer and winter, during the winter months drought sets in forcing the animals to come to the water holes in the riverbeds to get much needed water and food. Where the pans are situated the high salt content causes no vegetation to grow, while the highly calcareous or saline soils make the soil toxic to most vegetation. The deep sand cover throughout most of the Kalahari also affects the vegetation and its growth. In the southwestern part of the Kalahari there is very little vegetation while as you move north it increases with the northern-most areas having open woodlands, evergreen and deciduous trees and palms growing amongst the undergrowth. A few edible plants that survive in the desert are the creeping tsamma melons, gemsbok cucumbers, and wild cucumbers which all provide food for animals, although the meerkat has had its food stocks depleted by the grazing of wild edible plants by cattle. For the meerkat, food is more available when the soil is soft as it is easier to dig than hard soil and lessens energy required when searching for food. Food availability is important for the survival of the meerkat as it loses 5% of its body weight every night. As the meerkat searches for food, the distance between individuals usually differs according to the availability of food. When there is more limited food during the winter months they will spread up to 50 metres apart, but during the summer when food is more plentiful they will scavenge for food about 2 metres apart. Being able to eat a variety of items ranging from crickets, to grasshoppers, to small rodents, to lizards, enables the meerkat to consume something else if one food type is in short supply. The availability of food governs how many times the