title: Winx Club

text: The Regional Council of Marche, Italy, chose the "Winx Club" fairies to represent Marche and Italy at the Expo 2010 world's fair in Shanghai. A four-minute video using stereoscopic technology showing the Winx in Marche's tourist destinations was animated for the Italian Pavilion. In 2015, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi visited Rainbow's studio and wrote that "the Winx are a beautiful story of Italian talent".


title: Winx Club

text: In April 2004, The Walt Disney Company filed an unsuccessful copyright infringement lawsuit against Rainbow. The company accused Rainbow of copying the "Winx Club" concept from its "W.I.T.C.H." comic book, which was published over a year after production on "Winx Club" began. Disney applied for an injunction order to halt the further release of the "Winx Club" series and comic magazine; to declare the "Winx Club" trademark invalid; and to seize the periodical and film material bearing the allegedly infringing "Winx Club" name. Rainbow won the case against Disney, and the judge declared there were no confusing similarities between the two. Straffi mentioned that the "Winx Club" pilot entered production by 2000, while the "W.I.T.C.H." comic was not released until May 2001. On 2 August 2004, all of Disney's infringement claims were rejected by the Tribunale di Bologna's , which deemed them unfounded. The suit later became the subject of a commercial law seminar at the University of Macerata in 2009.


title: Winx Club

text: In 2005, Iginio Straffi was interviewed in "IO Donna" about the legal battle. He was asked how it felt "to be one of Disney's most hated people," and answered that he—as the founder of a small animation studio—was glad to have "defeated" a massive conglomerate. "I feel a certain pride in having annoyed such a giant. It's inspiring," he elaborated. As a result of the lawsuit, Straffi has avoided doing any business with the Disney corporation; he commented in 2014, "They've lost the chance to explore our creativity."


title: Winx Club

text: On 8 October 2006, a "Winx Club" feature film was announced on Rainbow's website. "The Secret of the Lost Kingdom" was released in Italy on 30 November 2007. Its television premiere was on 11 March 2012 on Nickelodeon in the United States. The plot takes place after the events of the first three seasons, following Bloom as she searches for her birth parents and fights the Ancestral Witches who destroyed her home planet. Iginio Straffi had planned this feature-length story since the beginning of the series' development.


title: Winx Club

text: On 9 November 2009, a sequel film was announced. "Winx Club 3D: Magical Adventure" was released in Italy on 29 October 2010. Its television premiere was on 20 May 2013, on Nickelodeon in the United States. In the film, Sky proposes to Bloom, but Sky's father does not approve of their marriage. Production on "Magical Adventure" began in 2007, while the first film was still in development. It is the first Italian film animated in stereoscopic 3D.


title: Winx Club

text: On February 19, 2013, Nickelodeon held a special screening of the movie at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. Nickelodeon star Daniella Monet (who voiced Bloom's rival, Mitzi, on the show) and creator Iginio Straffi both attended the premiere.


title: Winx Club

text: In late 2010, it was announced that Viacom (the owner of Nickelodeon and eventual co-owner of Rainbow) would provide the resources necessary to produce a new "Winx" film. The film, titled "Winx Club: The Mystery of the Abyss", was released in Italy on 4 September 2014. It made its television premiere on Nickelodeon Germany on 8 August 2015. The plot follows the Winx venturing through the Infinite Ocean to rescue Sky, who has been imprisoned by the Trix. According to Iginio Straffi, the film has a more comedic tone than the previous two films.


title: Winx Club

text: "PopPixie" is a miniseries that ran for a single season over two months in 2011. It features chibi-inspired Pixie characters who were first introduced in the second season of "Winx Club". After Nickelodeon became a co-developer of the main series, it was announced that "PopPixie" would air on Nickelodeon's global network of channels beginning in late 2011.


title: Winx Club

text: "World of Winx" is a spin-off series that premiered in 2016. Straffi described it as one "with more adult graphics, a kind of story better suited to an older audience" than the original series. It features the Winx travelling to Earth on an undercover mission to track down a kidnapper known as the Talent Thief. 26 episodes over two seasons were made.


title: Winx Club

text: In 2018, a live-action adaptation aimed at young adults was announced. Filming began in September 2019, with Abigail Cowen starring as Bloom. The series made its world premiere on 22 January 2021, following a teaser released on 10 December 2020.


title: Winx Club

text: The writers of "Fate: The Winx Saga" were entirely new to the "Winx" franchise, and they were recruited from teen dramas like "The Vampire Diaries". Early in production, Nickelodeon's American crew members from the cartoon (including Bloom's voice actress, Molly Quinn) met with the "Fate" production team and reviewed the pilot script. Rainbow's Joanne Lee also oversaw the show as an executive producer.


title: Winx Club

text: In September 2005, a live stage musical called "Winx Power Show" began touring in Italy. The musical later expanded to other European countries and the show's cast performed at the 2007 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards in Milan. An ice show follow-up starring Carolina Kostner was launched in November 2008. In October 2012, Nickelodeon held a live event at the Odeon Cinema Covent Garden, complete with a "pink carpet" and previews of upcoming episodes.


title: Winx Club

text: Iginio Straffi opened up to licensing "Winx Club" merchandise in order to finance his studio's other projects; in 2008, he stated that he reinvests "almost everything" back into Rainbow. Across the show's first ten years on air, more than 6,000 pieces of tie-in merchandise were released by external licensing companies. As of 2014, "Winx Club" merchandise licenses generated around annually, with most of the revenue going toward product licensees rather than Rainbow itself. According to a "VideoAge International" article, Rainbow's take from merchandise sales averages 10 percent, with some deals only giving the studio five percent.


title: Winx Club

text: After Viacom became a co-owner of Rainbow in 2011, Nickelodeon & Viacom Consumer Products started to create merchandise for the show. From 2011 to 2013, Nickelodeon spent on a "Winx Club" marketing campaign to promote both the show and the tie-in products. Nickelodeon partnered with Jakks Pacific to design dolls based on new episodes, and in the United Kingdom, the merchandise sold out before those episodes had even premiered. Nickelodeon's vice president of consumer products, Michael Connolly, said that ""Winx" has been a huge surprise, considering the program is not on free-to-air in the UK. We put toys in Argos [stores] and in just three days we experienced sales for a doll range unlike we've seen."


title: Winx Club

text: An ongoing comic book series has been published since the series' premiere. Over 210 Italian issues have been released as of 2021. In the United States, Viz Media translated a few of the first 88 issues and released them across nine volumes. Other tie-in books have been produced, starting with character guides distributed by Giunti Editore. In 2012, Nickelodeon partnered with Random House to publish "Winx Club" books in English.


title: Winx Club

text: Several video games based on the show have been made, with some exclusive to Europe. The first game was Konami Europe's "Winx Club" in 2005. In 2012, Nickelodeon launched "" for the Nintendo DS in both the United States and Europe. The Nickelodeon game was notable for being one of very few Nintendo DS titles to be played sideways, with the game system held like a book. A physical trading card game based on the franchise and produced by Upper Deck Entertainment was released in 2005.


title: Winx Club

text: Nickelodeon's website, Nick.com, created various Flash games based on the show. The "Winx Club" section on Nick.com became one of the most-visited pages on the site, with 1 million monthly visitors in mid-2013 and over 2.6 million gaming sessions.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: Margaret Yvonne Middleton (September 1, 1922January 8, 2007), known professionally as Yvonne De Carlo, was a Canadian-American actress, dancer and singer. She became a Hollywood film star in the 1940s and 50s, made several recordings, and later acted on television and stage.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, De Carlo was enrolled by her mother in a local dance school when she was three. By the early 1940s, she and her mother had moved to Los Angeles, where De Carlo participated in beauty contests and worked as a dancer in nightclubs. She began working in motion pictures in 1941, in short subjects. She sang "The Lamp of Memory" in a three-minute Soundies musical and in 1942 signed a three-year contract with Paramount Pictures, where she was given uncredited bit parts in important films. Her first lead was for independent producer E. B. Derr in the James Fenimore Cooper adventure "Deerslayer" in 1943.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: She obtained her breakthrough role in "Salome, Where She Danced" (1945), a Universal Pictures release produced by Walter Wanger, who described her as "the most beautiful girl in the world." The film's publicity and success turned her into a star, and she signed a five-year contract with Universal. Universal starred her in its lavish Technicolor productions, such as "Frontier Gal" (1945), "Song of Scheherazade" (1947), and "Slave Girl" (1947). Cameramen voted her "Queen of Technicolor" three years in a row. Tired of being typecast as exotic women, she made her first serious dramatic performances in two film noirs, "Brute Force" (1947) and "Criss Cross" (1949).


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: The first American film star to visit Israel, De Carlo received further recognition as an actress for her leading performances in the British comedies "Hotel Sahara" (1951), "The Captain's Paradise" (1953), and "Happy Ever After" (1954). Her career reached its peak when eminent producer-director Cecil B. DeMille cast her as Moses' Midianite wife, Sephora, her most prominent film role, in his biblical epic "The Ten Commandments" (1956), for which she won a Laurel Award for Topliner Supporting Actress. Her success continued with other notable starring roles in "Flame of the Islands" (1956), "Death of a Scoundrel" (1956), "Band of Angels" (1957), and "The Sword and the Cross" (1958), in which she portrayed Mary Magdalene.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: She starred in the CBS sitcom "The Munsters" (1964–1966), playing Herman Munster's glamorous vampire wife, Lily, a role she reprised in the feature film "Munster, Go Home!" (1966) and the television film "The Munsters' Revenge" (1981). In 1971, she played Carlotta Campion and introduced the popular song "I'm Still Here" in the Broadway production of the Stephen Sondheim musical "Follies". "Yvonne", her best-selling autobiography, was published in 1987. A stroke survivor, De Carlo died of heart failure in 2007. She was awarded two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to motion pictures and television.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo was born Margaret Yvonne Middleton on September 1, 1922, at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Her nickname was "Peggy" because she was named after the silent film star Baby Peggy. Her mother, Marie De Carlo, was born in France to a Sicilian father and a Scottish mother. Marie, a "wayward and rebellious" teenager, had aspired to become a dancer and worked as a milliner's apprentice until she met Peggy's father, William Shelto Middleton, a salesman from New Zealand with "piercing eyes of pale blue, and a wealth of straight black hair." Marie and William married in Alberta, where they lived for a couple of months before returning to Vancouver. They moved in with Marie's parents, but the marriage was troubled. Peggy had only two memories of her father: climbing up to his knee and crawling toward his feet. By the time Peggy was three, William was involved in various swindles and fled Canada aboard a schooner, promising to send for his wife and child. Marie and Peggy never heard from him again; rumors said that he remarried twice and had more children, worked as an actor in silent films, or died aboard a ship. Peggy later wrote, "My own assumption is that he died before he had the chance to discover that his Baby Peggy had become a Hollywood actress, or I think he would have tried to contact me."


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: After William's departure, Marie left her parents' home and found work in a shop. Marie and Peggy lived in a succession of apartments in Vancouver, including one that had no furniture or stove, and periodically returned to the De Carlo home, "a huge white frame house", at 1728 Comox Street in Vancouver's West End neighborhood. Marie's parents, Michele "Papa" De Carlo and Margaret Purvis De Carlo, were religious, attended church regularly, and held services in their parlor. Michele, a native of the city of Messina, had met Margaret in Nice, France. They married in 1897, had four children, and settled in Canada.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo originally wanted to be a writer. She was seven when a school assignment, a poem she wrote titled "A Little Boy", was entered in a contest run by the "Vancouver Sun". She won and received a prize of $5, which according to De Carlo, meant as much to her at that time as if she had won the Nobel Peace Prize. She also wrote short plays, which she usually staged in her grandparents' house, and even adapted Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" for a neighborhood performance.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: Marie wanted her daughter to have a career in show business and made sure Peggy received the necessary singing and dancing lessons. Peggy joined the choir of St. Paul's Anglican Church to strengthen her voice, and when she was ten (or three, according to a 1982 interview), her mother enrolled her in the June Roper School of the Dance in Vancouver. In May 1939, a "Variety" news item listed Yvonne de Carlo as one of the performers at the opening of Hy Singer's Palomar ballroom (also known as Palomar Supper Club) in Vancouver.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo and her mother made several trips to Los Angeles. In 1940, she won second place in the Miss Venice beauty contest, and placed fifth in that year's Miss California competition (and can be seen in that pageant at 0:36 of the British Pathé film "A Matter of Figures"). At the Miss Venice contest, she was noticed by a booking agent who told her to audition for an opening in the chorus line at the Earl Carroll Theatre on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo and her mother arrived at Earl Carroll's for the audition, but after learning that Carroll would have to examine her "upper assets" before hiring her, De Carlo and her mother searched for work at another popular Hollywood nightclub, the Florentine Gardens. They met the proprietor, Nils Granlund, and he introduced De Carlo to the audience before she tap danced to "Tea for Two". Granlund then asked, "Well, folks ... is she in or out?" The audience responded with "a rousing round of applause, with whistles and cheers", and De Carlo got the job. She started in the back of the chorus line, but after months of practice and hard work, Granlund featured her in a "King Kong number." In it, she danced, and cast off several chiffon veils before being carried away by a gorilla. She was given more solo routines and also appeared in her first soundie.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: She had been dancing at the Florentine Gardens only a few months when she was arrested by immigration officials and deported to Canada in late 1940. In January 1941, Granlund sent a telegram to immigration officials pledging his sponsorship of De Carlo in the U.S., and affirmed his offer of steady employment, both requirements to reenter the country.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: In May 1941, she appeared in a revue, "Hollywood Revels", at the Orpheum Theatre. A critic from the "Los Angeles Times" who reviewed it said the "dancing of Yvonne de Carlo is especially notable." She also made her debut on network radio with Edmund Lowe and Victor McLaglen, who were performing extracts from a series based on their Flagg-Quint performances.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo wanted to act. At the encouragement of her friend Artie Shaw, who offered to pay her wages for a month, she quit the Florentine Gardens and hired a talent agent, Jack Pomeroy. Pomeroy got De Carlo an uncredited role as a bathing beauty in a Columbia Pictures B film, "Harvard, Here I Come" (1941). She had one line ("Nowadays a girl must show a front") in a scene with the film's star, boxer Maxie Rosenbloom. Her salary was $25 and her work in the film got her into the Screen Actors Guild. When no other acting jobs came her way, she decided to return to the chorus line and auditioned for Earl Carroll, who hired her. While working for Carroll, she won a one-line part in "This Gun for Hire" (1942) at Paramount. Carroll found out and fired her, as he did not allow his dancers to work outside the nightclub without his permission. She asked Granlund if he could rehire her and he did. In December 1941, she was dancing in the revue "Glamour Over Hollywood" at the Gardens. America's entry into World War II saw De Carlo and other Florentine dancers busy entertaining troops at USO shows. A skilled horsewoman, she also appeared in a number of West Coast rodeos.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: Following an interview at Paramount, De Carlo was cast as one of Dorothy Lamour's handmaidens in "Road to Morocco" (1942). She was given a screen test for the role of Ata in "The Moon and Sixpence", but lost the part to Elena Verdugo. She returned to Paramount for a bit role in "Lucky Jordan" (1942) and found another small part in a Republic Pictures film, "Youth on Parade" (1942), which she later called a "dreadful ... bomb". After recovering from a bout of bronchial pneumonia, she went to Paramount Pictures and signed a six-month contract, possibly going up to seven years, starting at $60 a week.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: For her first assignment as a Paramount player, De Carlo was loaned out to Monogram Pictures to play a Florentine Gardens dancer in "Rhythm Parade", starring Nils Granlund (who had requested her for the role) and Gale Storm. She then appeared as an extra in Paramount's "The Crystal Ball" (1943), of which she wrote, "Only my left shoulder survived after editing". She asked director Sam Wood for a part in his next film, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (1943), and he gave her a small role in the cantina scene with Gary Cooper.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo was also seen in "Let's Face It" (1943), "So Proudly We Hail!" (1943) and "Salute for Three" (1943), She kept busy in small roles and helping other actors shoot tests. "I was the test queen at Paramount", she said later. But she was ambitious and wanted more. "I'm not going to be just one of the girls", she said. Cecil B. DeMille, Paramount's most famous director, saw De Carlo in "So Proudly We Hail!" and arranged for a screen-test and interview for a part in his film "The Story of Dr. Wassell" (1943), and subsequently selected her for a key role. He ended up choosing Carol Thurston for the role of Tremartini and casting De Carlo in an uncredited part as a native girl, but he promised her another role in a future film.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: Shortly after losing the role of Tremartini, De Carlo was loaned out to Republic Pictures to portray the Native American princess Wah-Tah in "Deerslayer". It was her first featured role in a full-length film. At Paramount, she played unbilled bit roles in "True to Life" (1943) and "Standing Room Only" (1944), and also made a screen test for the role of Lola in "Double Indemnity" (1944). She was billed in a short, "Fun Time" (1944) and went to MGM to play an uncredited lady-in-waiting in "Kismet" (1944).


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: "The New York Times" later dubbed De Carlo "threat girl" for Dorothy Lamour "when Dotty wanted to break away from saronging." This had its origin when De Carlo was set to replace Dorothy Lamour in the lead of "Rainbow Island" (1944); however Lamour changed her mind about playing the role. De Carlo was given a bit part in the final movie.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo played further unbilled roles in "Here Come the Waves" (1944), "Practically Yours" (1944), and "Bring on the Girls" (1945). Paramount then decided not to renew her contract option but did renew Lamour's contract.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo was screen tested by Universal, who were looking for an exotic glamour girl in the mold of Maria Montez and Acquanetta. The test was seen by Walter Wanger who was making an adventure film in Technicolor, "Salome, Where She Danced" (1945). Wanger later claimed he discovered De Carlo when looking at footage for another actor in which De Carlo also happened to appear (Milburn Stone).


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: Wanger tested De Carlo several times and Universal signed her to a long-term contract at $150 a week. In September 1944, it was announced De Carlo was cast in the lead of "Salome" over a reported 20,000 other young women.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: Another source says 21 Royal Canadian Air Force bombardier students who loved her as a pinup star campaigned to get her the role. De Carlo later said this was done at her behest; she took several pictures of herself in a revealing costume and persuaded two childhood friends from Vancouver, Reginald Reid and Kenneth Ross McKenzie, who had become pilots, to arrange their friends to lobby on her behalf, writing in her memoirs that the whole thing was Wanger's idea.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: Though not a critical success, "Salome" was a box office favorite, and the heavily promoted De Carlo was hailed as an up-and-coming star. In his review for the film, Bosley Crowther of "The New York Times" wrote:


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: Miss De Carlo has an agreeable mezzo-soprano singing voice, all the 'looks' one girl could ask for, and, moreover, she dances with a sensuousness which must have caused the Hays office some anguish. The script, however, does not give her much chance to prove her acting talents.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: Universal signed de Carlo to a long-term contract. She was used by the studio as a backup star to Maria Montez, and her second movie for the studio saw her step into a role rejected by Montez: the Western "Frontier Gal" (1946) alongside Rod Cameron. In 1946, exhibitors voted De Carlo the ninth-most promising "star of tomorrow." Like "Salome", it was shot in Technicolor.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo followed "Frontier Gal" with a top-billed role in Walter Reisch's Technicolor musical "Song of Scheherazade" (1947), co-starring Brian Donlevy and Jean-Pierre Aumont. Tilly Losch, an Austrian dancer and friend of Reisch, coached De Carlo in her three dancing solos. The film was a hit, making over $2 million.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo wanted to act in different types of movies. She applied to play the part of a waitress in "A Double Life" (1947) but lost out to Shelley Winters. Instead, Universal put her back in Technicolor for "Slave Girl" (1947), made with the producers of "Frontier Gal". It was another solid commercial success. De Carlo was given a small role in "Brute Force" (1947), a prison movie starring Burt Lancaster and produced by Mark Hellinger. It was her first movie in black and white since becoming a star and her first to get good reviews.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: She played Lola Montez in "Black Bart" (1948), a Technicolor Western with Dan Duryea for director George Sherman. Duryea and Sherman worked with her again on "River Lady" (1948). De Carlo called these films "physically taxing but not creatively inspiring." "The New York Times" later summarised them as "a series of routine costume adventures as a tough but good-natured minx from across the tracks who wades into society and inevitably backtracks with a bloke of her own caliber."


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: She romanced Tony Martin in "Casbah" (1948), a musical remake of "Algiers" (1938) made for Martin's own production company but released through Universal. De Carlo was reluctant to be in it because, though she would receive top billing over Martin, she did not get the female lead. That part went to Swedish newcomer Märta Torén. However, studio head William Goetz insisted that De Carlo play Inez, the role Sigrid Gurie acted in the 1938 version. She also sang the film's song "For Every Man There's a Woman", which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. The film flopped at the box office, de Carlo's first flop since becoming a star.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo then received an offer from Mark Hellinger to make another film with Burt Lancaster: the film noir "Criss Cross" (1949). This time De Carlo had a larger role, as a femme fatale, Anna. Bosley Crowther noted that De Carlo was "trying something different as Anna. The change is welcome, even though Miss de Carlo's performance is uneven. In that respect, she is right in step with most everything else about "Criss Cross."" The film has become regarded as a classic and De Carlo considered the role the highlight of her career to date. Tony Curtis made his debut in the movie, in a scene dancing with De Carlo.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo was keen to make more movies along this line but Universal put her back in Technicolor Westerns with "Calamity Jane and Sam Bass" (1949), playing Calamity Jane, directed by Sherman, alongside Howard Duff.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: She played a role intended for Deanna Durbin in "The Gal Who Took the West" (1950), for director Fred de Cordova. The movie gave her a chance to show off her singing voice. Trained in opera and a former child chorister at St Paul's Anglican Church, Vancouver, De Carlo possessed a large vocal range. She was meant to be in "Bagdad" (1949) but suffered a miscarriage and was ill, so the studio cast Maureen O'Hara.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Cordova directed de Carlo in "Buccaneer's Girl" (1950), a pirate movie set in 1810s New Orleans opposite Philip Friend. The director later called De Carlo "a doll ... underrated as an actress. She was most professional, worked hard, was very good at her craft, possibly was not a first class star but came in on schedule. She knew her lines, she danced and sang rather well, and she wanted very much to be a bigger star than she ever became."


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: She toured US army bases singing, then was in "The Desert Hawk" (1950), an "Eastern" with Richard Greene. She made a Western with Sherman, "Tomahawk" (1951), opposite Van Heflin, which was popular.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo toured extensively to promote her films and entertained US troops in Europe. She also began singing on television.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: She received an offer from England to make a comedy, "Hotel Sahara" (1951) with Peter Ustinov. While in England, she asked Universal to release her from her contract, though it still had three months to go, and the studio agreed.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: While in England, De Carlo recorded two singles, "Say Goodbye" and "I Love a Man". In March 1951 she signed a new contract with Universal to make one film a year for three years.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo went to Paramount to make a Western, "Silver City" (1951), for producer Nat Holt, co-starring alongside Edmond O'Brien for a fee of $50,000.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: In 1951, De Carlo accepted an offer to open the thirtieth season of the Hollywood Bowl singing the breeches role of Prince Orlovsky in five performances of the opera "Die Fledermaus" ("The Bat"), from July 10 to 14. The performances were conducted by noted film composer Franz Waxman. In her autobiography she described her participation in "Die Fledermaus" as "a rewarding experience, the aesthetic highlight of my life."


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: In August 1951, De Carlo became the first Canadian film star to visit the State of Israel, giving concerts in Haifa, Ramat Gan, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Jaffa. She drew capacity audiences and was "royally received" by the Israeli government and the public. Her performances consisted of singing and dancing routines from her films. Furthermore, she found that her films were extremely popular there, saying, "Every time I played a concert, someone would yell, 'Sing something from "Casbah".'" About the warm reception she received in Israel, she told columnist Louella Parsons:


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo returned early from Tel Aviv to make "The San Francisco Story" (1952) with Joel McCrea. It was the first of a two-picture deal with Fidelity Pictures; the second was to be "The Scarlet Flame" about Brazil's battle for independence, which was never made.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: She made her live TV debut in "Another Country" for "Lights Out" (1952). De Carlo wanted to make a film for Sydney Box called "Queen of Sheba" with Peter Ustinov as Solomon but it was never made.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: She went back to Universal for the first movie under her new contract, "Scarlet Angel" (1952) with Rock Hudson.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: At Paramount she did another film for Nat Holt, "Hurricane Smith" (1952), then she appeared in "Madame 44" for "The Ford Television Theatre" (1952). She announced plans to form her own production company with her agent, Vancouver Productions. However, as she later wrote "absolutely nothing" came of this.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo went to MGM to make "Sombrero" (1953), mostly shot in Mexico. She liked her character because it was "almost madonnalike.It is a role that demands the most sincerity for its proper interpretation. Many pictures that I have done perhaps offered me typical outdoor parts or western, heroine parts. So long as I could convey a flashy sort of impression it was alright... I don't deny the importance of such parts for me. They are excellent. But is stands to reason that as one goes on one seeks less superficial assignments.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo was reunited with Hudson for "Sea Devils" (1953), a Napoleonic adventure tale shot in Britain and France released through RKO. This meant she had to postpone a film she was going to make for Edward Small, "Savage Frontier". She was offered a role in "Innocents in Paris" (1953) but ultimately did not appear in the film.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: Back in the US, she had an adventure film set in the desert, "Fort Algiers" (1953), for United Artists, starring Carlos Thompson, whom de Carlo had recommended.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: She made her third film in Britain with "The Captain's Paradise" (1953), a comedy featuring the two wives a ship captain (played by Alec Guinness) keeps in separate ports. De Carlo played Nita, the sensual wife who lives in Morocco, while Celia Johnson played Maud, the demure wife who lives in Gibraltar. "The New York Times" critic Bosley Crowther commended her performance by writing, "And Miss De Carlo, as the siren, 'the mate of the tiger' in Mr. G. [Guinness], is wonderfully candid and suggestive of the hausfrau in every dame."


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo made a fourth film in England, "Happy Ever After" (1954) with David Niven, then was called back to the US to do a contemporary comedy on TV, "The Backbone of America" (1953) with Wendell Corey. In 1954, after the success of "The Captain's Paradise", she expressed a desire to do more comedy:


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: I've had my share of sirens and am happy to get away from them, no matter what the part. Just to look pretty on the screen as a romantic lead is probably all right, but – so what? I'd much rather do something in a good Western provided there's plenty of action. Action is what I like.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo went back to Universal to make a Western with McCrea, "Border River" (1954), directed by Sherman. She went to Italy for "The Contessa's Secret" (1954) and returned to Hollywood for the independently produced "Passion" (1954). She wrote a 42-page treatment for a science-fiction film "Operation Sram", which was not made. De Carlo made the Western "Shotgun" (1955) with Sterling Hayden for Allied Artists. She did "Hot Cargo" for "Screen Director's Playhouse" (1956) with Rory Calhoun directed by Tay Garnett.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo made her third film for Universal under her new contract in "Raw Edge" (1956). Republic starred her as Minna Wagner in a biopic of Richard Wagner, "Magic Fire" (1956). On TV she was in "The Sainted General" for "Star Stage" (1956). Republic reunited her with Duff in "Flame of the Islands" (1956), shot in the Bahamas.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: In September 1954, producer-director Cecil B. DeMille cast her as Sephora, the wife of Moses (played by Charlton Heston), in his biblical epic "The Ten Commandments", a Paramount Pictures production that premiered in November 1956. In his autobiography, DeMille explained he decided to cast De Carlo as Moses' wife after his casting director, Bert McKay, called his attention to one scene she played in "Sombrero". Even though the film "was a picture far removed in theme from "The Ten Commandments"", wrote DeMille, "I sensed in her a depth, an emotional power, a womanly strength which the part of Sephora needed and which she gave it."


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: She prepared extensively for the role, taking weaving lessons at the University of California, Los Angeles, and shepherding lessons in the San Fernando Valley. Months before filming began, she had worked on the part with a drama coach. Her scenes were shot on Paramount's sound stages in 1955. Her performance received praise from critics. Crowther, the "New York Times" critic, was impressed: "Yvonne De Carlo as the Midianite shepherdess to whom Moses is wed is notably good in a severe role." "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote that she "is very fine as the simple Sephora," and "New York Daily News" noticed that she "plays the wife of Moses with conviction." De Carlo was expected to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, but she preferred to be listed as a leading actress on the voting ballot and was not nominated in that category. However, she won a Laurel Award for Topliner Supporting Actress for her performance in the film.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: She fell in love with stuntman Bob Morgan while visiting the filming of "The Ten Commandments" in Egypt in 1954. They married in 1955, and their first son, Bruce, was born in 1956. DeMille became Bruce's godfather. Her second pregnancy meant she had to turn down the role of the female pirate DeMille had given her in his next production, "The Buccaneer" (1958).


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: It was announced she would team with Vittorio De Sica in an adaptation of "The Baker's Wife" to be shot in English and Italian but the film was never made. Neither were two projects de Carlo was meant to make in Italy following "Raw Edge", "The Mistress of Lebanon Castle" with Trevor Howard and "Honeymoon in Italy".


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: Instead De Carlo co-starred with George Sanders and Zsa Zsa Gabor in "Death of a Scoundrel" (1956). "The New York Times" commended her performance as Bridget Kelly: "Yvonne De Carlo does a solid and professional job as the adoring petty thief who rises to eminence with him [Sanders' character]." On the small screen she was in "Skits & Sketches" for "Shower of Stars" (1957). She was also in "Schlitz Playhouse" (1957)


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo released an LP record of standards called "Yvonne De Carlo Sings" on Masterseal Records, a subsidiary label of Remington Records, in 1957. Orchestrated by future film composer John Williams under the pseudonym "John Towner", the album contains ten tracks, "End of a Love Affair", "In the Blue of Evening", "I Got It Bad (and That Ain't Good)", "Am I Blue?", "Little Girl Blue", "Blue Moon", "But Not for Me", "My Blue Heaven", "Mood Indigo", "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)".


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: As a result of the great success and positive reviews of "The Ten Commandments", De Carlo was offered lead roles in two Warner Bros. films that would be shot at the same time: "The Helen Morgan Story" and "Band of Angels", based on Robert Penn Warren's novel. De Carlo chose the latter because her co-star would be Clark Gable, one of her favorite actors. The title refers to the short life expectancy of the black soldiers who fought with the Union troops in the Civil War, but the story is mainly about Amantha "Manty" Starr, a mixed-race Southern belle who is sold as a slave after her father's death and discovers that her deceased mother was a black slave on her father's plantation. Amantha is then taken to New Orleans where she is bought by plantation owner Hamish Bond (Gable), who falls in love with her. The film was both a critical and financial disappointment at the time of release.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo was in "Verdict of Three" for "Playhouse 90" (1958). She made a French Foreign Legion movie with Victor Mature, "Timbuktu", directed by Jacques Tourneur (1958). She unsuccessfully auditioned for the Broadway musical "Destry Rides Again" losing out to Dolores Gray.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: In May 1958, De Carlo was signed to play Mary Magdalene in the Italian biblical epic "The Sword and the Cross" (tentatively titled "The Great Sinner" and released in the United States as "Mary Magdalene"), with Jorge Mistral as her love interest, the Roman Gaius Marcellus, and Rossana Podestà as her sister, Martha. The film's director, Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, later remembered that "producer, Ottavio Poggi, had sent the provisional script to America, so Yvonne De Carlo could read it and decide on her participation in the film. She read it and got very excited, agreeing to play the role of Magdalene." The film was shot in English and later dubbed in Italian.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo put together a nightclub act and toured with it in South America. She guest-starred on "Bonanza" ("A Rose for Lotta", 1959), "Adventures in Paradise" ("Isle of Eden", 1960), "Death Valley Days" ("The Lady Was an M.D", 1961), "Follow the Sun" ("The Longest Crap Game in History" [1961] and "Annie Beeler's Place", 1962) and "Burke's Law" ("Who Killed Beau Sparrow?", 1963). She also played "Destry Rides Again" in summer stock.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo's husband had become permanently disabled while working as a stunt man on "How the West Was Won" (1963), eventually losing his leg. De Carlo took any job going, appearing in night club acts across the country as well as a play in stock, "Third Best Sport".


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: To help out, John Wayne offered her the supporting role of Louise Warren, the title character's cook in "McLintock!" (1963), with Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. She was second billed in a Western "Law of the Lawless" (1964) and played the Spanish dancer Dolores in the Bob Hope comedy "A Global Affair" (1964).


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo was in "The Night the Monkey Died" for "The Greatest Show on Earth" (1964). She took over a role on "Enter Laughing" on Broadway for a week, and played in it when the production went on tour.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: She was in debt by 1964 when she signed a contract with Universal Studios to perform the female lead role in "The Munsters" opposite Fred Gwynne. She was also the producers' choice to play Lily Munster when Joan Marshall, who played the character (originally called "Phoebe"), was dropped from consideration for the role. When De Carlo was asked how a glamorous actress could succeed as a ghoulish matriarch of a haunted house, she replied simply, "I follow the directions I received on the first day of shooting: 'Play her just like "Donna Reed".'" She sang and played the harp in at least one episode ("Far Out Munsters") of "The Munsters".


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: After the show's cancellation, she reprised her role as Lily Munster in the Technicolor film "Munster, Go Home!" (1966), partially in hopes of renewing interest in the sitcom. Despite the attempt, "The Munsters" was cancelled after 70 episodes. Of the sitcom and its cast and crew, she said: "It was a happy show with audience appeal for both children and adults. It was a happy show behind the scenes, too; we all enjoy working with each other." Years later, in 1987, she said: "I think Yvonne De Carlo was more famous than Lily, but I gained the younger audience through "The Munsters". And it was a steady job."


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: After "The Munsters", she guest-starred in "The Moulin Ruse Affair" in "The Girl from U.N.C.L.E." (1967) and "The Raiders" for "Custer" (1967) and episodes of "The Virginian".


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: She starred in "Hostile Guns" (1967) and "Arizona Bushwhackers" (1968), a pair of low-budget westerns produced by A. C. Lyles and released by Paramount Pictures. During this time, she also had a supporting role in the 1968 thriller "The Power".


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: After 1967, De Carlo became increasingly active in musicals, appearing in off-Broadway productions of "Pal Joey" and "Catch Me If You Can". In early 1968 she joined Donald O'Connor in a 15-week run of "Little Me" staged between Lake Tahoe and Las Vegas and she did a five-month tour in "Hello Dolly". Later she toured in "Cactus Flower".


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo continued to appear in films such as "The Delta Factor" (1970) and had a notable part in Russ Meyer's "The Seven Minutes" (1971). The "Los Angeles Times" said about the latter that De Carlo featured in "an improbable sequence pulled off with verve by the still glamorous star."


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: Her defining stage role was as "Carlotta Campion" in Harold Prince's production of the Stephen Sondheim musical "Follies" in 1971–72. Playing a washed-up star at a reunion of old theater colleagues, she introduced the song "I'm Still Here". De Carlo said she was told the part was written especially for her.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: In October 1972, De Carlo arrived in Australia to replace Cyd Charisse in Michael Edgley's production of "No, No, Nanette". Her opening night was on November 6, 1972, at Her Majesty's Theatre in Melbourne. The show moved on to Adelaide, Sydney, and then to several New Zealand cities. It closed in the fall of 1973, and De Carlo returned to the United States.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: In late 1973 and early 1974, she starred in a production of Ben Bagley's "Decline and Fall of the Entire World as Seen Through the Eyes of Cole Porter" in San Diego.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: In May 1975, she starred in the San Bernardino Civic Light Opera's production of "Applause" at the California Theatre of the Performing Arts. "The San Bernardino Sun" described her performance as "brilliant" and wrote, "a packed house watched Yvonne De Carlo give a new dimension to Margo Channing, a part she was playing for the first time, but nonetheless, a part she was very well suited for."


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo appeared in "The Girl on the Late, Late Show" (1974), "The Mark of Zorro" (1974), "Arizona Slim" (1974), "The Intruder" (1975), "Blazing Stewardesses" (1975), "It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time" (1975), "Black Fire" (1975), and "La casa de las sombras" (1976).


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: She continued to appear on stage, notably in "Dames at Sea", "Barefoot in the Park" and "The Sound of Music".


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: She was seen on "Satan's Cheerleaders" (1977), "Nocturna" (1979), "" (1979), "Fuego negro" (1979), "The Silent Scream" (1979) and "The Man with Bogart's Face " (1980). She guest-starred on shows like "Fantasy Island".


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo was in "The Munsters' Revenge" (1981), then "Liar's Moon" (1982), "Play Dead" (1982), "Vultures" (1984), "Flesh and Bullets" (1985), and "A Masterpiece of Murder" (1986) (with Bob Hope). She was in a revival of "The Munsters".


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo's later films included "American Gothic" (1988), for which she won the Best Actress Award from International Science Fiction and Fantasy Film Show (Fantafestival); "Cellar Dweller" (1988); and "Mirror Mirror" (1990). She had a supporting role as the title character's Aunt Rosa in the Sylvester Stallone comedy "Oscar" (1991). Aunt Rosa is present when Oscar's father, played by Kirk Douglas, extracts "a deathbed promise" from his son. Of her role, De Carlo said, "Mine is a small part—but funny."


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: She appeared in "Murder, She Wrote" ("Jessica Behind Bars", 1985), "The Naked Truth" (1992), "Seasons of the Heart" (1993), and "Death of Some Salesmen" in "Tales from the Crypt" (1993). She had a small cameo role in "Here Come the Munsters", a 1995 television film remake of "The Munsters". De Carlo, along with Al Lewis, Pat Priest, and Butch Patrick, did not have to wear costumes "because the Munsters have several lives."


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: Her final performance was as Norma, "an eccentric Norma Desmond lookalike", in the 1995 television film "The Barefoot Executive", a Disney Channel remake of the 1971 film of the same title. Norma, a former stand-in for film actors, "monkey-sits" the title character, a chimpanzee named Archie who is able to predict top-rated television series. "She has these outrageous costumes—six of them—and it's just a small part", De Carlo told "Los Angeles Times". "But I like to do small things now."


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: In 2007, her son Bruce revealed that, before her death, she played supporting roles in two independent films that have yet to be released.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: In 1950, De Carlo purchased an eleven-room ranch house on five-and-a-half acres of "hilly woodland" on Coldwater Canyon Drive in Studio City, Los Angeles, above Beverly Hills. De Carlo described it as her "dream home" and hired an architect to help her design "an English-style dining room, with paneling and stained-glass windows." She also built stables for her horses and a large swimming pool. She sold the property in 1975. In 1981, she moved to a ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley, near Solvang, California.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: In her autobiography, De Carlo considered director Billy Wilder "the first big love of my life". They met in 1943 when she was under contract to Paramount Pictures. Although she described him as the physical "antithesis of my lifelong dream man", she fell in love with him and admired his "endless charm and wit". He was separated from his wife and lived in a rented house while they were together. Their short-lived relationship ended when he left her for actress Doris Dowling.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: In 1945, after the release of her second film, "Frontier Gal", De Carlo returned to Vancouver and attended a celebration held in her honor at her former workplace, the Palomar nightclub, where she was introduced to billionaire Howard Hughes. She later discovered he had flown directly from Los Angeles because he wanted to meet her outside of Hollywood. Hughes told her he had seen "Salome, Where She Danced" more than five times and was enthralled by her beauty. De Carlo initially "felt just kind of sorry" for the "lanky, underfed, and remarkably sad" Hughes. The following day they went out on a date and began a romantic relationship. Hughes preferred to keep their romance private and never mentioned it to the press. De Carlo wanted to marry him but he was not serious about their relationship. De Carlo later wrote, "Howard Hughes was one of the most important loves of my life".


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: After her breakup with Hughes, De Carlo dated Robert Stack and Burt Lancaster, her "Criss Cross" co-star. During the filming of "Brute Force", De Carlo fell in love with her co-star, fellow Universal contract player Howard Duff. Despite the fact that they "had almost nothing in common," Duff was interested in marrying De Carlo and the studio approved their relationship. In April 1947, De Carlo announced her engagement to Duff, but they eventually separated due to his alcoholism.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo met Prince Abdul Reza Pahlavi of Iran when he visited Beverly Hills in 1947. A week later, they traveled to New York and spent some time together. After the completion of her film "Casbah", De Carlo embarked on her first trip to Europe, reuniting with Prince Abdul in Paris. They vacationed in Switzerland and Italy, and, several months later, De Carlo also visited the royal palace in Tehran.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: In the late 1940s, De Carlo began a relationship with Jock Mahoney, a stuntman who worked on her film "The Gal Who Took the West". While she was engaged to Mahoney, De Carlo became pregnant and also discovered she had a large ovarian cyst. The tumor was surgically removed and, as a result, she lost the baby. Her relationship with Mahoney ended when De Carlo found out he was seeing another woman, actress Margaret Field.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: In the 1950s, one of her fiancés was English photographer Cornel Lucas. In early 1954, she informed columnist Erskine Johnson about her engagement to Scottish actor Robert Urquhart, her co-star in "Happy Ever After". She said, "I'm just getting settled down into feeling that I'm ready for marriage. Before, I felt that I wasn't ready."


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: I think it is wonderful to work. I dedicate more time now than ever to study. I really like to delve deeply into the characters and the stories in order to make the most of each part I play. It seems best to remain free of any serious romantic attachments under these circumstances. I will have to meet an exceptional and understanding person, indeed, before I think of marriage. I haven't met such a person yet.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo met stuntman Robert Drew "Bob" Morgan on the set of "Shotgun" in 1955, but he was married and had a child, daughter Bari Lee, and De Carlo had "no intention of causing that marriage to break up." However, they met again, after the death of Morgan's wife, on the set of "The Ten Commandments" in Egypt, where they "seemed immediately attracted to each other." They were married on November 21, 1955, at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Reno, Nevada. De Carlo raised Bari as her own and had two sons with Morgan: Bruce Ross, whose godfather was Cecil B. DeMille; and Michael.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: Bob Morgan was seriously injured and almost died while performing a stunt in the film "How the West Was Won" (1962). Toward the end of the film, there is a gunfight on a moving train between the marshal and a gang of train robbers. Doubling for the actor who played the marshal, Morgan was told to hold on to a log and sway between two flatcars, one of them carrying several tons of timber. The chains holding the logs together snapped, and Morgan was crushed by the falling logs. He was so badly hurt it took him five years to recover to the point where he was able to move by himself and walk unaided. Because his contract with MGM assumed no responsibility for the accident, De Carlo and Morgan filed a $1.4 million lawsuit against the studio, claiming her husband was permanently disabled.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: After the accident, De Carlo worked arduously to support her family and was often away from home, touring with stage productions or performing in nightclubs. Morgan's constant arguing strained their marriage and De Carlo even considered divorcing her husband in 1968. When she returned home after a New Zealand tour of "No, No, Nanette", she filed for divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. They were divorced in July 1973.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo, a naturalized citizen of the United States, was an active Republican who campaigned for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford. In her autobiography, she recounted the time when she "loved to give interviews, and enjoyed being outspoken, or 'good copy,' openly discussing my survival instincts and admitting my to-the-right-of-right politics."


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: A conservative, she stated in a 1976 television interview with the CBC: "I'm all for men and I think they ought to stay up there and be the bosses, and have women wait on them hand and foot and put their slippers on and hand them the pipe and serve seven-course meals; as long as they open the door, support the woman, and do their duty in the bedroom, et cetera."


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo's maternal grandparents came from distinct religious backgrounds: He was Catholic and she was Presbyterian. They raised her as an Anglican; she was a member and chorister of Vancouver's St. Paul's Anglican Church.


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: In her autobiography, De Carlo wrote about her faith in God: "God has saved me and mine from some pretty sticky situations. For me, religion is a little like being a Republican or a Democrat. It's not the party that counts, it's the man. Therefore, I care not what house of worship I enter, be it Catholic, Presbyterian, or Baptist. I elected God a long time ago and I'll stick with Him, because I don't think His term will ever be up."


title: Yvonne De Carlo

text: De Carlo suffered a minor stroke in 1998. She later became a resident of the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital, in Woodland Hills, where she spent her last years. She died from heart failure on January 8, 2007, and was cremated.


title: Desert

text: A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the land surface of the Earth is arid or semi-arid. This includes much of the polar regions, where little precipitation occurs, and which are sometimes called polar deserts or "cold deserts". Deserts can be classified by the amount of precipitation that falls, by the temperature that prevails, by the causes of desertification or by their geographical location.


title: Desert

text: Deserts are formed by weathering processes as large variations in temperature between day and night put strains on the rocks, which consequently break in pieces. Although rain seldom occurs in deserts, there are occasional downpours that can result in flash floods. Rain falling on hot rocks can cause them to shatter, and the resulting fragments and rubble strewn over the desert floor are further eroded by the wind. This picks up particles of sand and dust, which can remain airborne for extended periods – sometimes causing the formation of sand storms or dust storms. Wind-blown sand grains striking any solid object in their path can abrade the surface. Rocks are smoothed down, and the wind sorts sand into uniform deposits. The grains end up as level sheets of sand or are piled high in billowing sand dunes. Other deserts are flat, stony plains where all the fine material has been blown away and the surface consists of a mosaic of smooth stones. These areas are known as desert pavements, and little further erosion takes place. Other desert features include rock outcrops, exposed bedrock and clays once deposited by flowing water. Temporary lakes may form and salt pans may be left when waters evaporate. There may be underground sources of water, in the form of springs and seepages from aquifers. Where these are found, oases can occur.


title: Desert

text: Plants and animals living in the desert need special adaptations to survive in the harsh environment. Plants tend to be tough and wiry with small or no leaves, water-resistant cuticles, and often spines to deter herbivory. Some annual plants germinate, bloom and die in the course of a few weeks after rainfall, while other long-lived plants survive for years and have deep root systems able to tap underground moisture. Animals need to keep cool and find enough food and water to survive. Many are nocturnal, and stay in the shade or underground during the heat of the day. They tend to be efficient at conserving water, extracting most of their needs from their food and concentrating their urine. Some animals remain in a state of dormancy for long periods, ready to become active again during the rare rainfall. They then reproduce rapidly while conditions are favorable before returning to dormancy.


title: Desert

text: People have struggled to live in deserts and the surrounding semi-arid lands for millennia. Nomads have moved their flocks and herds to wherever grazing is available, and oases have provided opportunities for a more settled way of life. The cultivation of semi-arid regions encourages erosion of soil and is one of the causes of increased desertification. Desert farming is possible with the aid of irrigation, and the Imperial Valley in California provides an example of how previously barren land can be made productive by the import of water from an outside source. Many trade routes have been forged across deserts, especially across the Sahara, and traditionally were used by caravans of camels carrying salt, gold, ivory and other goods. Large numbers of slaves were also taken northwards across the Sahara. Some mineral extraction also takes place in deserts, and the uninterrupted sunlight gives potential for the capture of large quantities of solar energy.


title: Desert

text: English "desert" and its Romance cognates (including Italian and Portuguese "deserto", French "désert" and Spanish "desierto") all come from the ecclesiastical Latin "dēsertum" (originally "an abandoned place"), a participle of "dēserere", "to abandon". The correlation between aridity and sparse population is complex and dynamic, varying by culture, era, and technologies; thus the use of the word "desert" can cause confusion. In English before the 20th century, "desert" was often used in the sense of "unpopulated area", without specific reference to aridity; but today the word is most often used in its climate-science sense (an area of low precipitation). Phrases such as "desert island" and "Great American Desert", or Shakespeare's "deserts of Bohemia" ("The Winter's Tale") in previous centuries did not necessarily imply sand or aridity; their focus was the sparse population.


title: Desert

text: Deserts take up about one third of Earth's land surface. Bottomlands may be salt-covered flats. Eolian processes are major factors in shaping desert landscapes. Polar deserts (also seen as "cold deserts") have similar features, except the main form of precipitation is snow rather than rain. Antarctica is the world's largest cold desert (composed of about 98% thick continental ice sheet and 2% barren rock). Some of the barren rock is to be found in the so-called Dry Valleys of Antarctica that almost never get snow, which can have ice-encrusted saline lakes that suggest evaporation far greater than the rare snowfall due to the strong katabatic winds that even evaporate ice.


title: Desert

text: Deserts, both hot and cold, play a part in moderating Earth's temperature. This is because they reflect more of the incoming light and their albedo is higher than that of forests or the sea.


title: Desert

text: A desert is a region of land that is very dry because it receives low amounts of precipitation (usually in the form of rain, but it may be snow, mist or fog), often has little coverage by plants, and in which streams dry up unless they are supplied by water from outside the area. Deserts generally receive less than of precipitation each year. The potential evapotranspiration may be large but (in the absence of available water) the actual evapotranspiration may be close to zero. Semi-deserts are regions which receive between and when clad in grass, these are known as steppes.


title: Desert

text: One of the driest places on Earth is the Atacama Desert. It is virtually devoid of life because it is blocked from receiving precipitation by the Andes mountains to the east and the Chilean Coast Range to the west. The cold Humboldt Current and the anticyclone of the Pacific are essential to keep the dry climate of the Atacama. The average precipitation in the Chilean region of Antofagasta is just per year. Some weather stations in the Atacama have never received rain. Evidence suggests that the Atacama may not have had any significant rainfall from 1570 to 1971. It is so arid that mountains that reach as high as are completely free of glaciers and, in the southern part from 25°S to 27°S, may have been glacier-free throughout the Quaternary, though permafrost extends down to an altitude of and is continuous above . Nevertheless, there is some plant life in the Atacama, in the form of specialist plants that obtain moisture from dew and the fogs that blow in from the Pacific.


title: Desert

text: When rain falls in deserts, as it occasionally does, it is often with great violence. The desert surface is evidence of this with dry stream channels known as arroyos or wadis meandering across its surface. These can experience flash floods, becoming raging torrents with surprising rapidity after a storm that may be many kilometers away. Most deserts are in basins with no drainage to the sea but some are crossed by exotic rivers sourced in mountain ranges or other high rainfall areas beyond their borders. The River Nile, the Colorado River and the Yellow River do this, losing much of their water through evaporation as they pass through the desert and raising groundwater levels nearby. There may also be underground sources of water in deserts in the form of springs, aquifers, underground rivers or lakes. Where these lie close to the surface, wells can be dug and oases may form where plant and animal life can flourish. The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System under the Sahara Desert is the largest known accumulation of fossil water. The Great Man-Made River is a scheme launched by Libya's Muammar Gadaffi to tap this aquifer and supply water to coastal cities. Kharga Oasis in Egypt is long and is the largest oasis in the Libyan Desert. A lake occupied this depression in ancient times and thick deposits of sandy-clay resulted. Wells are dug to extract water from the porous sandstone that lies underneath. Seepages may occur in the walls of canyons and pools may survive in deep shade near the dried up watercourse below.


title: Desert

text: Lakes may form in basins where there is sufficient precipitation or meltwater from glaciers above. They are usually shallow and saline, and wind blowing over their surface can cause stress, moving the water over nearby low-lying areas. When the lakes dry up, they leave a crust or hardpan behind. This area of deposited clay, silt or sand is known as a playa. The deserts of North America have more than one hundred playas, many of them relics of Lake Bonneville which covered parts of Utah, Nevada and Idaho during the last ice age when the climate was colder and wetter. These include the Great Salt Lake, Utah Lake, Sevier Lake and many dry lake beds. The smooth flat surfaces of playas have been used for attempted vehicle speed records at Black Rock Desert and Bonneville Speedway and the United States Air Force uses Rogers Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert as runways for aircraft and the Space Shuttle.


title: Desert

text: Deserts have been defined and classified in a number of ways, generally combining total precipitation, number of days on which this falls, temperature, and humidity, and sometimes additional factors. For example, Phoenix, Arizona, receives less than of precipitation per year, and is immediately recognized as being located in a desert because of its aridity-adapted plants. The North Slope of Alaska's Brooks Range also receives less than of precipitation per year and is often classified as a cold desert. Other regions of the world have cold deserts, including areas of the Himalayas and other high-altitude areas in other parts of the world. Polar deserts cover much of the ice-free areas of the Arctic and Antarctic. A non-technical definition is that deserts are those parts of Earth's surface that have insufficient vegetation cover to support a human population.


title: Desert

text: Potential evapotranspiration supplements the measurement of precipitation in providing a scientific measurement-based definition of a desert. The water budget of an area can be calculated using the formula "P" − "PE" ± "S", wherein "P" is precipitation, "PE" is potential evapotranspiration rates and "S" is the amount of surface storage of water. Evapotranspiration is the combination of water loss through atmospheric evaporation and through the life processes of plants. Potential evapotranspiration, then, is the amount of water that "could" evaporate in any given region. As an example, Tucson, Arizona receives about of rain per year, however about of water could evaporate over the course of a year. In other words, about eight times more water could evaporate from the region than actually falls as rain. Rates of evapotranspiration in cold regions such as Alaska are much lower because of the lack of heat to aid in the evaporation process.


title: Desert

text: Deserts are sometimes classified as "hot" or "cold", "semiarid" or "coastal". The characteristics of hot deserts include high temperatures in summer; greater evaporation than precipitation, usually exacerbated by high temperatures, strong winds and lack of cloud cover; considerable variation in the occurrence of precipitation, its intensity and distribution; and low humidity. Winter temperatures vary considerably between different deserts and are often related to the location of the desert on the continental landmass and the latitude. Daily variations in temperature can be as great as or more, with heat loss by radiation at night being increased by the clear skies.


title: Desert

text: Cold deserts, sometimes known as temperate deserts, occur at higher latitudes than hot deserts, and the aridity is caused by the dryness of the air. Some cold deserts are far from the ocean and others are separated by mountain ranges from the sea, and in both cases, there is insufficient moisture in the air to cause much precipitation. The largest of these deserts are found in Central Asia. Others occur on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, the eastern side of the southern Andes and in southern Australia. Polar deserts are a particular class of cold desert. The air is very cold and carries little moisture so little precipitation occurs and what does fall, usually snow, is carried along in the often strong wind and may form blizzards, drifts and dunes similar to those caused by dust and sand in other desert regions. In Antarctica, for example, the annual precipitation is about on the central plateau and some ten times that amount on some major peninsulas.


title: Desert

text: Based on precipitation alone, hyperarid deserts receive less than of rainfall a year; they have no annual seasonal cycle of precipitation and experience twelve-month periods with no rainfall at all. Arid deserts receive between in a year and semiarid deserts between . However, such factors as the temperature, humidity, rate of evaporation and evapotranspiration, and the moisture storage capacity of the ground have a marked effect on the degree of aridity and the plant and animal life that can be sustained. Rain falling in the cold season may be more effective at promoting plant growth, and defining the boundaries of deserts and the semiarid regions that surround them on the grounds of precipitation alone is problematic.


title: Desert

text: A semi-arid desert or a steppe is a version of the arid desert with much more rainfall, vegetation and higher humidity. These regions feature a semi-arid climate and are less extreme than regular deserts. Like arid deserts, temperatures can vary greatly in semi deserts. They share some characteristics of a true desert and are usually located at the edge of deserts and continental dry areas. They usually receive precipitation from but this can vary due to evapotranspiration and soil nutrition. Semi deserts can be found in the Tabernas Desert (and some of the Spanish Plateau), The Sahel, The Eurasian Steppe, most of Central Asia, the Western US, most of Northern Mexico, portions of South America (especially in Argentina) and the Australian Outback. They usually feature "BSh" (hot steppe) or "BSk" (temperate steppe) in the Köppen climate classification.


title: Desert

text: Coastal deserts are mostly found on the western edges of continental land masses in regions where cold currents approach the land or cold water upwellings rise from the ocean depths. The cool winds crossing this water pick up little moisture and the coastal regions have low temperatures and very low rainfall, the main precipitation being in the form of fog and dew. The range of temperatures on a daily and annual scale is relatively low, being and respectively in the Atacama Desert. Deserts of this type are often long and narrow and bounded to the east by mountain ranges. They occur in Namibia, Chile, southern California and Baja California. Other coastal deserts influenced by cold currents are found in Western Australia, the Arabian Peninsula and Horn of Africa, and the western fringes of the Sahara.


title: Desert

text: In 1961, Peveril Meigs divided desert regions on Earth into three categories according to the amount of precipitation they received. In this now widely accepted system, extremely arid lands have at least twelve consecutive months without precipitation, arid lands have less than of annual precipitation, and semiarid lands have a mean annual precipitation of between . Both extremely arid and arid lands are considered to be deserts while semiarid lands are generally referred to as steppes when they are grasslands.


title: Desert

text: Deserts are also classified, according to their geographical location and dominant weather pattern, as trade wind, mid-latitude, rain shadow, coastal, monsoon, or polar deserts. Trade wind deserts occur either side of the horse latitudes at 30° to 35° North and South. These belts are associated with the subtropical anticyclone and the large-scale descent of dry air moving from high-altitudes toward the poles. The Sahara Desert is of this type. Mid-latitude deserts occur between 30° and 50° North and South. They are mostly in areas remote from the sea where most of the moisture has already precipitated from the prevailing winds. They include the Tengger and Sonoran Deserts. Monsoon deserts are similar. They occur in regions where large temperature differences occur between sea and land. Moist warm air rises over the land, deposits its water content and circulates back to sea. Further inland, areas receive very little precipitation. The Thar Desert near the India/Pakistan border is of this type.


title: Desert

text: In some parts of the world, deserts are created by a rain shadow effect. Orographic lift occurs as air masses rise to pass over high ground. In the process they cool and lose much of their moisture by precipitation on the windward slope of the mountain range. When they descend on the leeward side, they warm and their capacity to hold moisture increases so an area with relatively little precipitation occurs. The Taklamakan Desert is an example, lying in the rain shadow of the Himalayas and receiving less than precipitation annually. Other areas are arid by virtue of being a very long way from the nearest available sources of moisture.


title: Desert

text: Montane deserts are arid places with a very high altitude; the most prominent example is found north of the Himalayas, in the Kunlun Mountains and the Tibetan Plateau. Many locations within this category have elevations exceeding and the thermal regime can be hemiboreal. These places owe their profound aridity (the average annual precipitation is often less than 40 mm or 1.5 in) to being very far from the nearest available sources of moisture and are often in the lee of mountain ranges. Montane deserts are normally cold, or may be scorchingly hot by day and very cold by night as is true of the northeastern slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro.


title: Desert

text: Polar deserts such as McMurdo Dry Valleys remain ice-free because of the dry katabatic winds that flow downhill from the surrounding mountains. Former desert areas presently in non-arid environments, such as the Sandhills in Nebraska, are known as paleodeserts. In the Köppen climate classification system, deserts are classed as "BWh" (hot desert) or "BWk" (temperate desert). In the Thornthwaite climate classification system, deserts would be classified as arid megathermal climates.


title: Desert

text: Polar deserts are a type of cold desert. While they do not lack water, having a persistent cover of snow and ice, this is merely due to marginal evaporation rates and low precipitation.


title: Desert

text: The concept of "biological desert" redefines the concept of desert, without the characteristic of aridity, not lacking water, but instead lacking life. Such places can be so-called "ocean deserts", which are mostly at the centers of gyres, but also hypoxic or anoxic waters such as dead zones.


title: Desert

text: Deserts usually have a large diurnal and seasonal temperature range, with high daytime temperatures falling sharply at night. The diurnal range may be as much as and the rock surface experiences even greater temperature differentials. During the day the sky is usually clear and most of the sun's radiation reaches the ground, but as soon as the sun sets, the desert cools quickly by radiating heat into space. In hot deserts, the temperature during daytime can exceed in summer and plunge below freezing point at night during winter.


title: Desert

text: Such large temperature variations have a destructive effect on the exposed rocky surfaces. The repeated fluctuations put a strain on exposed rock and the flanks of mountains crack and shatter. Fragmented strata slide down into the valleys where they continue to break into pieces due to the relentless sun by day and chill by night. Successive strata are exposed to further weathering. The relief of the internal pressure that has built up in rocks that have been underground for aeons can cause them to shatter. Exfoliation also occurs when the outer surfaces of rocks split off in flat flakes. This is believed to be caused by the stresses put on the rock by repeated thermal expansions and contractions which induces fracturing parallel to the original surface. Chemical weathering processes probably play a more important role in deserts than was previously thought. The necessary moisture may be present in the form of dew or mist. Ground water may be drawn to the surface by evaporation and the formation of salt crystals may dislodge rock particles as sand or disintegrate rocks by exfoliation. Shallow caves are sometimes formed at the base of cliffs by this means.


title: Desert

text: As the desert mountains decay, large areas of shattered rock and rubble occur. The process continues and the end products are either dust or sand. Dust is formed from solidified clay or volcanic deposits whereas sand results from the fragmentation of harder granites, limestone and sandstone. There is a certain critical size (about 0.5 mm) below which further temperature-induced weathering of rocks does not occur and this provides a minimum size for sand grains.


title: Desert

text: As the mountains are eroded, more and more sand is created. At high wind speeds, sand grains are picked up off the surface and blown along, a process known as saltation. The whirling airborne grains act as a sand blasting mechanism which grinds away solid objects in its path as the kinetic energy of the wind is transferred to the ground. The sand eventually ends up deposited in level areas known as sand-fields or sand-seas, or piled up in dunes.


title: Desert

text: Many people think of deserts as consisting of extensive areas of billowing sand dunes because that is the way they are often depicted on TV and in films, but deserts do not always look like this. Across the world, around 20% of desert is sand, varying from only 2% in North America to 30% in Australia and over 45% in Central Asia. Where sand does occur, it is usually in large quantities in the form of sand sheets or extensive areas of dunes.


title: Desert

text: A sand sheet is a near-level, firm expanse of partially consolidated particles in a layer that varies from a few centimeters to a few meters thick. The structure of the sheet consists of thin horizontal layers of coarse silt and very fine to medium grain sand, separated by layers of coarse sand and pea-gravel which are a single grain thick. These larger particles anchor the other particles in place and may also be packed together on the surface so as to form a miniature desert pavement. Small ripples form on the sand sheet when the wind exceeds . They form perpendicular to the wind direction and gradually move across the surface as the wind continues to blow. The distance between their crests corresponds to the average length of jumps made by particles during saltation. The ripples are ephemeral and a change in wind direction causes them to reorganise.


title: Desert

text: Sand dunes are accumulations of windblown sand piled up in mounds or ridges. They form downwind of copious sources of dry, loose sand and occur when topographic and climatic conditions cause airborne particles to settle. As the wind blows, saltation and creep take place on the windward side of the dune and individual grains of sand move uphill. When they reach the crest, they cascade down the far side. The upwind slope typically has a gradient of 10° to 20° while the lee slope is around 32°, the angle at which loose dry sand will slip. As this wind-induced movement of sand grains takes place, the dune moves slowly across the surface of the ground. Dunes are sometimes solitary, but they are more often grouped together in dune fields. When these are extensive, they are known as sand seas or ergs.


title: Desert

text: The shape of the dune depends on the characteristics of the prevailing wind. Barchan dunes are produced by strong winds blowing across a level surface and are crescent-shaped with the concave side away from the wind. When there are two directions from which winds regularly blow, a series of long, linear dunes known as seif dunes may form. These also occur parallel to a strong wind that blows in one general direction. Transverse dunes run at a right angle to the prevailing wind direction. Star dunes are formed by variable winds, and have several ridges and slip faces radiating from a central point. They tend to grow vertically; they can reach a height of , making them the tallest type of dune. Rounded mounds of sand without a slip face are the rare dome dunes, found on the upwind edges of sand seas.


title: Desert

text: In deserts where large amounts of limestone mountains surround a closed basin, such as at White Sands National Park in south-central New Mexico, occasional storm runoff transports dissolved limestone and gypsum into a low-lying pan within the basin where the water evaporates, depositing the gypsum and forming crystals known as selenite. The crystals left behind by this process are eroded by the wind and deposited as vast white dune fields that resemble snow-covered landscapes. These types of dune are rare, and only form in closed arid basins that retain the highly soluble gypsum that would otherwise be washed into the sea.


title: Desert

text: A large part of the surface area of the world's deserts consists of flat, stone-covered plains dominated by wind erosion. In "eolian deflation", the wind continually removes fine-grained material, which becomes wind-blown sand. This exposes coarser-grained material, mainly pebbles with some larger stones or cobbles, leaving a desert pavement, an area of land overlaid by closely packed smooth stones forming a tessellated mosaic. Different theories exist as to how exactly the pavement is formed. It may be that after the sand and dust is blown away by the wind the stones jiggle themselves into place; alternatively, stones previously below ground may in some way work themselves to the surface. Very little further erosion takes place after the formation of a pavement, and the ground becomes stable. Evaporation brings moisture to the surface by capillary action and calcium salts may be precipitated, binding particles together to form a desert conglomerate. In time, bacteria that live on the surface of the stones accumulate a film of minerals and clay particles, forming a shiny brown coating known as desert varnish.


title: Desert

text: Other non-sandy deserts consist of exposed outcrops of bedrock, dry soils or aridisols, and a variety of landforms affected by flowing water, such as alluvial fans, sinks or playas, temporary or permanent lakes, and oases. A hamada is a type of desert landscape consisting of a high rocky plateau where the sand has been removed by aeolian processes. Other landforms include plains largely covered by gravels and angular boulders, from which the finer particles have been stripped by the wind. These are called "reg" in the western Sahara, "serir" in the eastern Sahara, "gibber plains" in Australia and "saï" in central Asia. The Tassili Plateau in Algeria is an impressive jumble of eroded sandstone outcrops, canyons, blocks, pinnacles, fissures, slabs and ravines. In some places the wind has carved holes or arches, and in others, it has created mushroom-like pillars narrower at the base than the top. On the Colorado Plateau, it is water that has been the prevailing eroding force. Here, rivers, such as the Colorado, have cut their way over the millennia through the high desert floor, creating canyons that are over a mile (6,000 feet or 1,800 meters) deep in places, exposing strata that are over two billion years old.


title: Desert

text: Sand and dust storms are natural events that occur in arid regions where the land is not protected by a covering of vegetation. Dust storms usually start in desert margins rather than the deserts themselves where the finer materials have already been blown away. As a steady wind begins to blow, fine particles lying on the exposed ground begin to vibrate. At greater wind speeds, some particles are lifted into the air stream. When they land, they strike other particles which may be jerked into the air in their turn, starting a chain reaction. Once ejected, these particles move in one of three possible ways, depending on their size, shape and density; suspension, saltation or creep. Suspension is only possible for particles less than in diameter. In a dust storm, these fine particles are lifted up and wafted aloft to heights of up to . They reduce visibility and can remain in the atmosphere for days on end, conveyed by the trade winds for distances of up to . Denser clouds of dust can be formed in stronger winds, moving across the land with a billowing leading edge. The sunlight can be obliterated and it may become as dark as night at ground level. In a study of a dust storm in China in 2001, it was estimated that 6.5 million tons of dust were involved, covering an area of . The mean particle size was 1.44 μm. A much smaller scale, short-lived phenomenon can occur in calm conditions when hot air near the ground rises quickly through a small pocket of cooler, low-pressure air above forming a whirling column of particles, a dust devil.


title: Desert

text: Sandstorms occur with much less frequency than dust storms. They are often preceded by severe dust storms and occur when the wind velocity increases to a point where it can lift heavier particles. These grains of sand, up to about in diameter are jerked into the air but soon fall back to earth, ejecting other particles in the process. Their weight prevents them from being airborne for long and most only travel a distance of a few meters (yards). The sand streams along above the surface of the ground like a fluid, often rising to heights of about . In a really severe steady blow, is about as high as the sand stream can rise as the largest sand grains do not become airborne at all. They are transported by creep, being rolled along the desert floor or performing short jumps.


title: Desert

text: During a sandstorm, the wind-blown sand particles become electrically charged. Such electric fields, which range in size up to 80 kV/m, can produce sparks and cause interference with telecommunications equipment. They are also unpleasant for humans and can cause headaches and nausea. The electric fields are caused by the collision between airborne particles and by the impacts of saltating sand grains landing on the ground. The mechanism is little understood but the particles usually have a negative charge when their diameter is under 250 μm and a positive one when they are over 500 μm.


title: Desert

text: Deserts and semi-deserts are home to ecosystems with low or very low biomass and primary productivity in arid or semi-arid climates. They are mostly found in subtropical high-pressure belts and major continental rain shadows. Primary productivity depends on low densities of small photoautotrophs that sustain a sparse trophic network. Plant growth is limited by rainfall, temperature extremes and desiccating winds. Deserts have strong temporal variability in the availability of resources due to the total amount of annual rainfall and the size of individual rainfall events. Resources are often ephemeral or episodic, and this triggers sporadic animal movements and ‘pulse and reserve’ or ‘boom-bust’ ecosystem dynamics. Erosion and sedimentation are high due to the sparse vegetation cover and the activities of large mammals and people. Plants and animals in deserts are mostly adapted to extreme and prolonged water deficits, but their reproductive phenology often responds to short episodes of surplus. Competitive interactions are weak.


title: Desert

text: Plants face severe challenges in arid environments. Problems they need to solve include how to obtain enough water, how to avoid being eaten and how to reproduce. Photosynthesis is the key to plant growth. It can only take place during the day as energy from the sun is required, but during the day, many deserts become very hot. Opening stomata to allow in the carbon dioxide necessary for the process causes evapotranspiration, and conservation of water is a top priority for desert vegetation. Some plants have resolved this problem by adopting crassulacean acid metabolism, allowing them to open their stomata during the night to allow CO to enter, and close them during the day, or by using C4 carbon fixation.


title: Desert

text: Many desert plants have reduced the size of their leaves or abandoned them altogether. Cacti are desert specialists, and in most species, the leaves have been dispensed with and the chlorophyll displaced into the trunks, the cellular structure of which has been modified to allow them to store water. When rain falls, the water is rapidly absorbed by the shallow roots and retained to allow them to survive until the next downpour, which may be months or years away. The giant saguaro cacti of the Sonoran Desert form "forests", providing shade for other plants and nesting places for desert birds. Saguaro grows slowly but may live for up to two hundred years. The surface of the trunk is folded like a concertina, allowing it to expand, and a large specimen can hold eight tons of water after a good downpour.


title: Desert

text: Cacti are present in both North and South America with a post-Gondwana origin. Other xerophytic plants have developed similar strategies by a process known as convergent evolution. They limit water loss by reducing the size and number of stomata, by having waxy coatings and hairy or tiny leaves. Some are deciduous, shedding their leaves in the driest season, and others curl their leaves up to reduce transpiration. Others store water in succulent leaves or stems or in fleshy tubers. Desert plants maximize water uptake by having shallow roots that spread widely, or by developing long taproots that reach down to deep rock strata for ground water. The saltbush in Australia has succulent leaves and secretes salt crystals, enabling it to live in saline areas. In common with cacti, many have developed spines to ward off browsing animals.


title: Desert

text: Some desert plants produce seed which lies dormant in the soil until sparked into growth by rainfall. With annuals, such plants grow with great rapidity and may flower and set seed within weeks, aiming to complete their development before the last vestige of water dries up. For perennial plants, reproduction is more likely to be successful if the seed germinates in a shaded position, but not so close to the parent plant as to be in competition with it. Some seed will not germinate until it has been blown about on the desert floor to scarify the seed coat. The seed of the mesquite tree, which grows in deserts in the Americas, is hard and fails to sprout even when planted carefully. When it has passed through the gut of a pronghorn it germinates readily, and the little pile of moist dung provides an excellent start to life well away from the parent tree. The stems and leaves of some plants lower the surface velocity of sand-carrying winds and protect the ground from erosion. Even small fungi and microscopic plant organisms found on the soil surface (so-called "cryptobiotic soil") can be a vital link in preventing erosion and providing support for other living organisms. Cold deserts often have high concentrations of salt in the soil. Grasses and low shrubs are the dominant vegetation here and the ground may be covered with lichens. Most shrubs have spiny leaves and shed them in the coldest part of the year.


title: Desert

text: Animals adapted to live in deserts are called xerocoles. There is no evidence that body temperature of mammals and birds is adaptive to the different climates, either of great heat or cold. In fact, with a very few exceptions, their basal metabolic rate is determined by body size, irrespective of the climate in which they live. Many desert animals (and plants) show especially clear evolutionary adaptations for water conservation or heat tolerance and so are often studied in comparative physiology, ecophysiology, and evolutionary physiology. One well-studied example is the specializations of mammalian kidneys shown by desert-inhabiting species. Many examples of convergent evolution have been identified in desert organisms, including between cacti and Euphorbia, kangaroo rats and jerboas, "Phrynosoma" and "Moloch" lizards.


title: Desert

text: Deserts present a very challenging environment for animals. Not only do they require food and water but they also need to keep their body temperature at a tolerable level. In many ways, birds are the ablest to do this of the higher animals. They can move to areas of greater food availability as the desert blooms after local rainfall and can fly to faraway waterholes. In hot deserts, gliding birds can remove themselves from the over-heated desert floor by using thermals to soar in the cooler air at great heights. In order to conserve energy, other desert birds run rather than fly. The cream-colored courser flits gracefully across the ground on its long legs, stopping periodically to snatch up insects. Like other desert birds, it is well-camouflaged by its coloring and can merge into the landscape when stationary. The sandgrouse is an expert at this and nests on the open desert floor dozens of kilometers (miles) away from the waterhole it needs to visit daily. Some small diurnal birds are found in very restricted localities where their plumage matches the color of the underlying surface. The desert lark takes frequent dust baths which ensures that it matches its environment.


title: Desert

text: Water and carbon dioxide are metabolic end products of oxidation of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. Oxidising a gram of carbohydrate produces 0.60 grams of water; a gram of protein produces 0.41 grams of water; and a gram of fat produces 1.07 grams of water, making it possible for xerocoles to live with little or no access to drinking water. The kangaroo rat for example makes use of this water of metabolism and conserves water both by having a low basal metabolic rate and by remaining underground during the heat of the day, reducing loss of water through its skin and respiratory system when at rest. Herbivorous mammals obtain moisture from the plants they eat. Species such as the addax antelope, dik-dik, Grant's gazelle and oryx are so efficient at doing this that they apparently never need to drink. The camel is a superb example of a mammal adapted to desert life. It minimizes its water loss by producing concentrated urine and dry dung, and is able to lose 40% of its body weight through water loss without dying of dehydration. Carnivores can obtain much of their water needs from the body fluids of their prey. Many other hot desert animals are nocturnal, seeking out shade during the day or dwelling underground in burrows. At depths of more than , these remain at between regardless of the external temperature. Jerboas, desert rats, kangaroo rats and other small rodents emerge from their burrows at night and so do the foxes, coyotes, jackals and snakes that prey on them. Kangaroos keep cool by increasing their respiration rate, panting, sweating and moistening the skin of their forelegs with saliva. Mammals living in cold deserts have developed greater insulation through warmer body fur and insulating layers of fat beneath the skin. The arctic weasel has a metabolic rate that is two or three times as high as would be expected for an animal of its size. Birds have avoided the problem of losing heat through their feet by not attempting to maintain them at the same temperature as the rest of their bodies, a form of adaptive insulation. The emperor penguin has dense plumage, a downy under layer, an air insulation layer next to the skin and various thermoregulatory strategies to maintain its body temperature in one of the harshest environments on Earth.


title: Desert

text: Being ectotherms, reptiles are unable to live in cold deserts but are well-suited to hot ones. In the heat of the day in the Sahara, the temperature can rise to . Reptiles cannot survive at this temperature and lizards will be prostrated by heat at . They have few adaptations to desert life and are unable to cool themselves by sweating so they shelter during the heat of the day. In the first part of the night, as the ground radiates the heat absorbed during the day, they emerge and search for prey. Lizards and snakes are the most numerous in arid regions and certain snakes have developed a novel method of locomotion that enables them to move sidewards and navigate high sand-dunes. These include the horned viper of Africa and the sidewinder of North America, evolutionarily distinct but with similar behavioural patterns because of convergent evolution. Many desert reptiles are ambush predators and often bury themselves in the sand, waiting for prey to come within range.


title: Desert

text: Amphibians might seem unlikely desert-dwellers, because of their need to keep their skins moist and their dependence on water for reproductive purposes. In fact, the few species that are found in this habitat have made some remarkable adaptations. Most of them are fossorial, spending the hot dry months aestivating in deep burrows. While there they shed their skins a number of times and retain the remnants around them as a waterproof cocoon to retain moisture. In the Sonoran Desert, Couch's spadefoot toad spends most of the year dormant in its burrow. Heavy rain is the trigger for emergence and the first male to find a suitable pool calls to attract others. Eggs are laid and the tadpoles grow rapidly as they must reach metamorphosis before the water evaporates. As the desert dries out, the adult toads rebury themselves. The juveniles stay on the surface for a while, feeding and growing, but soon dig themselves burrows. Few make it to adulthood. The water holding frog in Australia has a similar life cycle and may aestivate for as long as five years if no rain falls. The Desert rain frog of Namibia is nocturnal and survives because of the damp sea fogs that roll in from the Atlantic.


title: Desert

text: Invertebrates, particularly arthropods, have successfully made their homes in the desert. Flies, beetles, ants, termites, locusts, millipedes, scorpions and spiders have hard cuticles which are impervious to water and many of them lay their eggs underground and their young develop away from the temperature extremes at the surface. The Saharan silver ant ("Cataglyphis bombycina") uses a heat shock protein in a novel way and forages in the open during brief forays in the heat of the day. The long-legged darkling beetle in Namibia stands on its front legs and raises its carapace to catch the morning mist as condensate, funnelling the water into its mouth. Some arthropods make use of the ephemeral pools that form after rain and complete their life cycle in a matter of days. The desert shrimp does this, appearing "miraculously" in new-formed puddles as the dormant eggs hatch. Others, such as brine shrimps, fairy shrimps and tadpole shrimps, are cryptobiotic and can lose up to 92% of their bodyweight, rehydrating as soon as it rains and their temporary pools reappear.


title: Desert

text: Humans have long made use of deserts as places to live, and more recently have started to exploit them for minerals and energy capture. Deserts play a significant role in human culture with an extensive literature.