The Gobi Desert
British International School Shanghai Puxi, Nathan Kwon, Fiction: Group 3
T
he waterless desert, Gobi desert is really waterless that even the word ‘Gobi’ means
waterless place. It is so big that it covers a space of five hundred thousand square miles.
It is the fifth largest desert in the world and the largest desert in Asia. The interesting
fact is that the Gobi desert is fast getting bigger and bigger so perhaps the Gobi desert
will soon become a very big desert. Some deserts are cold and the Gobi desert is one of the cold
deserts. It is located North West of China and South of Mongolia so dwellers in the Gobi belong
to the Mongolian race but there is some Han Chinese. The landscape of the Gobi desert displays
varying rocks and sand. Also the Gobi desert contains vast rocky areas and large dry grasslands.
Gobi is very waterless so snowfall and waterfall are very rare in the dessert although an
underground river runs through it. It contains forty five amazing different species of animals and
a variety of plants. Many fossils have been found and attracting scientists from around the world
and attracting aspiring Chinese paleontologists. Also the Gobi for fossil hunters is not a desert.
They feel it is a fossil storage. The dwellers in the harsh Gobi are known for their hospitality with
their treatment to visitors if they offer for it. They always leave some foods for eat it next time
but they give some food from there to visitors. Also there are different people who have different
personalities and nationalities in the Gobi desert.
There are a lot of different species of animals in the Gobi desert. An animal that you can
easily be finding is the camel. Camels are common animal in almost all deserts because many
people especially Nomads ride camels to travel far place. Camels are about two meters to three
and a half meters tall and camels weigh about to three hundred kilograms to six hundred and
ninety kilograms. Camels are herbivores so they eat grass or plants. The camel’s main predators
are lion, leopard and also people. Its most amazing attribute is its ability to live ten months
without drinking water. Fifty years old is the oldest age that camel can live. The smallest animal
in the Gobi desert is the jerboa. The jerboa is like a very small kangaroo without a pouch in their
stomach. It is the size of a mouse and it has a very long tail. The long tail helps them to maintain
their balance as they hop across the rocky landscape. It also has powerful legs like a kangaroo’s
so they can gap ten feet without a single leap. It also has big ears. The predator that eats the
jerboa is golden eagles. The jerboa lives for eighteen years in wild. There are some fierce animals
in the Gobi. One of them is the desert wolf and one of them is the famous snow leopard. The wolf
is a carnivore and humans consume them as well. The wolf’s favourite food is deer and main
preys are deer, elk and moose. They can live for about ten to twelve years. Snow leopards used
to roam across the cold Gobi in great numbers of members but because of the human settlement,
the snow leopard is now one of the many endangered animals. There are only about one thousand
and seven hundred left individually in wild. Another endangered animal that finds shelter in the
Gobi is the Gobi bear. The Gobi bear is one of the most seriously endangered animals in the Earth.
There are approximately fifty Gobi bears left in the world. They are almost in Gobi because Gobi
desert is their home. Last but not the least amazing among the many creatures in the desert is
the, musk-ox. The musk-ox is giant herbivore and another name of it is oomingmak in Alaskan
language. Oomingmak means ‘the animal with skin like a beard’ in Eskimo language. It has a lot
of long and brown fur that really appears like a beard on their body. There are a lot of amazing
