A carpet of lichens covers the Namib Desert dunes north of Swakopmund, Namibia Africa. Currently, Namibia has 120 lichens species, which are found in the Namib Desert. They grow in great diversity on west facing slopes and surfaces where they are able to draw moisture from the sea fogs.
 
Located in Namibia, the Namib Desert, is an effortlessly beautiful landscape that shows its age with old scars carved into the earth remaining unchanged in its present form for the last 2 million years of its 55 million year existence. The Namib Desert stretches 1,000 miles along the Atlantic coast of Southern Africa making Namibia one of the least densely populated countries in the world with a population of 2.1 million people. 
 
This desert is a broad expanse of hyper-arid gravel plains and dunes that stretches along Namibia's entire coastline. It varies between 100 to many hundreds of kilometres in width. Areas within the Namib include the Skeleton Coast and the Kaokoveld in the north and the extensive Namib Sand Sea along the central coast. A number of unusual species of animals that are highly adaptive and can live on little water are found in this desert to include oryxes, springboks, ostriches, and in some areas even desert elephants.