WHAT MAKES ME SO SPECIAL AND INTERESTING? I am a reptile, like alligators, snakes, and lizards. Reptiles depend on heat from outside our bodies, such as the sun, to keep warm. Our bodies must stay within just the right temperatures for us to move about, find and digest our food. Cool temperatures cause us to move slowly. Warm temperatures allow us to move faster. It’s also dangerous for us to become too hot or too cold. This is my habitat and burrow. We have some special abilities (adaptations) that allow us to live in the desert despite the harsh conditions. Being reptiles we must move to places in our environment that help us gain or lose heat to keep our bodies at the right the temperatures. If we were to stay in the sun after reaching the right temperature, we would just become hotter and hotter and eventually die from overheating. Shade may not be cool enough to save us. One very important adaptation that makes us interesting is our way of protecting ourselves from extreme heat and cold above ground. We are diggers and we dig a number of underground burrows over the area in which we live. We remember where these burrows are located. This digging behavior results in our having underground protection that is cooler in summer than temperatures at the ground surface that may reach 140 degrees Fahrenheit. These burrows are located so that no matter where we are one is usually close by. We spend at least 95% of our lives in these burrows. By moving in and out of them we keep our bodies at just the right temperatures. When the weather turns cold in the fall, we become too cold to move about. One or more of us will share one of these burrows to sleep through the winter (hibernate) protected from freezing. How important are these burrows? If, for example, one of them is crushed, run over by a vehicle traveling off of a road, and a tortoise is inside, it would probably be crushed. If a tortoise comes upon that crushed burrow when it is time to get out of the heat the tortoise cannot use it for protection. The tortoise may not have time to find or dig a burrow that is long enough before dying in the deadly heat. Another special adaptation is our ability to use the water stored in our bladders. This water comes from green plants that we eat and water we drink. When our bodies need it, this water is able to pass back into our bodies, something your body cannot do.