While most desert animals will drin

While most desert animals will drink water if confronted with it, for many of them the opportunity never comes. Yet all living things must have water, or they will expire. The herbivores find it in desert plants. The carnivores slake their thirst with the flesh and blood 5 of living prey. One of the most remarkable adjustments, however, has been made by the tiny kangaroo rat, who not only lives without drinking but subsists on a diet of dry seeds containing about 5% free water. Like other animals, he has the ability to manufacture water in his body by a metabolic conversion of carbohydrates. But 10 he is notable for the parsimony with which he conserves his small supply by every possible means, expending only minuscule amounts in his excreta and through evaporation from his respiratory tract.

Investigation into how the kangaroo rat can live without drinking 15 water has involved various experiments with these small animals. Could kangaroo rats somehow store water in their bodies and slowly utilize these resources in the long periods when no free water is available from dew or rain? The simplest way to settle this question was to determine the total water content in the animals to see if 20 it decreases as they are kept for long periods on a dry diet. If they slowly use up their water, the body should become increasingly dehydrated, and if they begin with a store of water, this should be evident from an initial high water content. Results of such experiments with kangaroo rats on dry diets for more than 7 weeks showed that 25 the rats maintained their body weight. There was no trend toward a decrease in water content during the long period of water deprivation. When the kangaroo rats were given free access to water, they did not drink water. They did nibble on small pieces of watermelon, but this did not change appreciably the water content in their bodies, 30 which remained at 66.3 to 67.2 during this period.

This is very close to the water content of dry-fed animals (66.5), and the availability of free water, therefore, did not lead to any "storage" that could be meaningful as a water reserve. This makes 35 it reasonable to conclude that physiological storage of water is not a factor in the kangaroo rat's ability to live on dry food.

Kết quả (Việt) 1:

Trong khi đặt động vật sa mạc sẽ uống nước nếu phải đối mặt với nó, đối với nhiều người trong số họ cơ hội không bao giờ đến. Nhưng tất cả các sinh vật sống phải có nước, hoặc họ sẽ hết hạn. Các động vật ăn cỏ tìm thấy nó ở sa mạc thực vật. Thit slake của khát với thịt và máu 5 con mồi sống. Một trong những điều chỉnh đáng chú ý nhất, Tuy nhiên, đã được thực hiện bởi các con chuột kangaroo nhỏ, những người không chỉ là cuộc sống mà không uống rượu nhưng subsists trên một chế độ ăn uống của giặt miễn phí hạt có chứa khoảng 5% nước. Giống như các động vật khác, ông có khả năng sản xuất nước trong cơ thể của mình bằng một chuyển đổi trao đổi chất carbohydrate. Nhưng 10 ông là đáng chú ý vì sự cẩn thận mà ông bảo tồn cung cấp nhỏ của mình bằng mọi phương tiện có thể bỏ số tiền rất nhỏ chỉ trong phân của mình và thông qua sự bốc hơi từ đường hô hấp của mình. Investigation into how the kangaroo rat can live without drinking 15 water has involved various experiments with these small animals. Could kangaroo rats somehow store water in their bodies and slowly utilize these resources in the long periods when no free water is available from dew or rain? The simplest way to settle this question was to determine the total water content in the animals to see if 20 it decreases as they are kept for long periods on a dry diet. If they slowly use up their water, the body should become increasingly dehydrated, and if they begin with a store of water, this should be evident from an initial high water content. Results of such experiments with kangaroo rats on dry diets for more than 7 weeks showed that 25 the rats maintained their body weight. There was no trend toward a decrease in water content during the long period of water deprivation. When the kangaroo rats were given free access to water, they did not drink water. They did nibble on small pieces of watermelon, but this did not change appreciably the water content in their bodies, 30 which remained at 66.3 to 67.2 during this period. This is very close to the water content of dry-fed animals (66.5), and the availability of free water, therefore, did not lead to any "storage" that could be meaningful as a water reserve. This makes 35 it reasonable to conclude that physiological storage of water is not a factor in the kangaroo rat's ability to live on dry food.