Arabian Sand Cat Noticed for First Time in a 10 Years

An Arabian sand cat (latin name : Felis margarita harrisoni) in the (UAE) United Arab Emirates has been spotted for the first time in a decade, according to New Scientist.

This very rare, secret animal and skilled hunter is listed as “near threatened” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s “red list” of threatened species.

Scientist Shakeel Ahmed, of The Environment Agency , placed hidden camera in 2015, but was not hoping to capture these sand cats. However, the results were amazing. He got a lot of photos of these creatures.

Sand cats live in desert areas of North Africa and southwest and central Asia. They are used to on cold and hot temperature changes of those settings and will even burrow into sand dunes to keep their body temperature. It is interesting that they have a fur on their foot pads, and that means they don’t leave tracks in the sand. This makes even more hard any to locate these mysterious animal, which are very good at hiding from people.

At first look these animals look a lot like home cats and weigh about 4 to 8 pounds. They can be about foot tall and are about 3 feet long.

Photos of Arabian Sand Cats :