Survival in the Kalahari region can require some serious adaptations for plants. We recently dug up a tuber, which stores water and nutrients underground so that the plant can use this storage reserve in times of scarcity. Even animals often dig these up for water.
Our tuber, shown on the right below with a water bottle for size comparison, weighs 28 kilograms. Last year's tuber, shown on the left, weighed 48 kg when it was first dug up last year. Now it weighs only 5 kg, meaning that it lost 43 kg of water over the past year!
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