successfully to t
his constantly changing environment.At the northern end of the Chihuahuan Desert lies a mountain-ringed valley, the Tularosa Basin. Rising from the heart of this basin is one of the world's great natural wonders-the glistening white sands of New Mexico. Great wave-like dunes of gypsum sand have engulfed 275 square miles of desert here and created the largest gypsum dune field in the world. The dunes, brilliant and white, are ever changin
- g. They grow, crest,
- then slump but always advance. Slowly but relentlessly
- the sand, driven by strong southwest
- winds, cov
- ers everything in its path. Within the extrem
- ely harsh environment
- of the dune
- field, even plants and animals adapted to desert conditions struggle to sur
- vive. Only a few speci
- es of plants grow
- rapidly enough to
- Heat-treating furnaces
- survive burial by the moving dunes, but several types of small animals have evolved white colorations to camouflage th
