Sand cat
| Sand cat | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Family: | Felidae |
| Genus: | Felis |
| Species: | F. margarita |
| Binomial name | |
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Felis margarita Loche, 1858 |
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The sand cat (Felis margarita), also known as the sand dune cat, is the only cat living foremost in true deserts. This small cat is widely distributed in the deserts of North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. It was listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List since 2002 because the population was considered fragmented and small with a declining trend. It was downlisted to Least Concern in 2016.
The sand cat inhabits both sandy and stony desert, in areas far from water. Having thickly furred feet, it is well adapted to the extremes of a desert environment and tolerant of extremely hot and cold temperatures.
The sand cat is a Felis species, a genus within the family Felidae. The French soldier and naturalist Victor Loche first described the sand cat from a specimen found in the area of "Négonça" in the northern Algerian Sahara, and proposed to name the cat in recognition of Jean Auguste Margueritte, who headed the expedition into the Sahara. This holotype specimen appears to have been lost.
In 1926, Russian zoologist Sergej Ognew described a sand cat collected in the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan under the name Eremaelurus thinobius. In 1938, British zoologist Reginald Innes Pocock considered this specimen as a species under the name Felis thinobius. Later he considered it a subspecies of the sand cat, which to date is widely recognised.
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Wikipedia