The sand cat (Felis margarita), also known as the sand dune cat, is the only felid found primarily in true desert, and has a wide but apparently disjunct distribution through the deserts of northern Africa and southwest and central Asia. Since 2002 this small cat has been listed as Near Threatened by IUCN due to concern over potential low population size and decline.
The sand cat lives in arid areas that are too hot and dry even for the African Wildcat: the Sahara, the Arabian Desert, and the deserts of Iran and Pakistan.
Victor Loche was the first European who described the sand cat in 1858. He named the species Felis margarita after Jean Auguste Margueritte, the leader of the expedition during which he had encountered the animal.
Read more about Sand Cat: Characteristics, Distribution and Habitat, Ecology and Behavior, Threats, Conservation
Famous quotes containing the words sand and/or cat:
“O that my vexation were weighed, and all my calamity laid in the balances! For then it would be heavier than the sand of the sea; therefore my words have been rash. For the arrows of the Almighty are in me; my spirit drinks their poison; the terrors of God are arrayed against me.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 6:2-5.
“like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.”
—Sylvia Plath (1932–1963)