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We report here on the first sighting and photographic documentation of kittens of
African sand cats Felis margarita margarita in the region of Addrar Souttouf in the
Moroccan Sahara near the Atlantic coast in late April 2017.
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Citations
... We aimed to define the species' annual and seasonal home range sizes, with a more robust sample size than the aforementioned studies, and to characterize their social organisation through recording concurrent individual presence in the study area while recording their body weights and sex and assessing their age classes. After publishing some of our preliminary results (Breton et al., 2016;Sliwa et al., 2017) and data on morphology (Breton et al., 2022), we here present more extensive home-range estimate data on African sand cats collected from December 2015 to December 2019. ...
... With our search and capture method, we spotted 47 different sand cats and were able to catch 41 (30 males, 11 females). Of the six sand cats not captured, three were small kittens (Sliwa et al., 2017), and three evaded us in rough terrain where driving was difficult. All captured sand cats appeared externally to be in good condition, with no fresh wounds, very few scars, no tooth breakages, nor substantial deposits of calculus/tartar on the teeth but all cats were parasitized by ticks and/or fleas with ticks nested in external earflaps. ...
... In total, we have radio-tracked 22 individuals and our study demonstrates that sand cats are using much larger than previously reported home-ranges: The male M29 tracked over a year, covered 232.4 km 2 (100% MCP) and 418.9 km 2 (99% KDE), and M4, the most intensively tracked individual, used 134 km 2 (100% MCP) and 128.7 km 2 (99% KDE) over a period of 291 days. We lost contact with M14 after 320 days of tracking and an estimate home range of 511 km 2 (100%MCP) and 412.2 km 2 (99%KDE) while he was moving towards the North, and we lost F5, the dam of the three kittens observed in 2017 (Sliwa et al., 2017), after 256 days of tracking and an estimated home range of 754.7 km 2 (100%MCP) and 1021.3 km 2 (99%KDE) while she was moving westwards. Interestingly, we succeeded in continued monitoring of M9 despite him making very large movements within our study area and we recorded that his range extended to 1350.3 km 2 (100% MCP) and 1758.5 km 2 (99% KDE) within 6.5 months, before we could not locate him anymore. ...
Data on African sand cats Felis margarita margarita was collected in the southern provinces of Morocco between December 2015 and December 2019. Within these four years, a total of 47 sand cats were observed, 41 were captured and 22 were fitted with VHF radio-collars and tracked over various time spans. Home-range size estimations were calculated for 10 adult sand cats with more than 30 independent fixes. Home-range mean sizes averaged 274.6 ± 394.8 km2 (95% Minimum Convex Polygon ± SD) and 291.9 ± 417 km2 (95% Kernel Density Estimation ± SD) for females (N = 3; 149 locations) to 319.3 ± 451.8 km2 (95% MCP) and 304.5 ± 375.7 km2 (95% KDE) for males (N = 7; 311 locations). Given the number of sand cats observed in the study area and the external good conditions of all 41 captured cats, who showed no wounds, very few scars and no tooth breakage, we hypothesise that the sand cats are tolerant of each other and likely non-territorial. Our understanding of their ecology remains however limited and their social organization and mating pattern almost unknown. Important future research should focus on diet, overlying social organization and relatedness of sand cats, in relation with environmental conditions and anthropogenic factors.
... Kittens were detected only between May and August (hot season). With a gestation period documented between 59 and 67 days (Mellen 1989), this implies mating 2-3 months previously, between late February to May, slightly later than reported in the central Sahara (November to February, Sunquist and Sunquist 2002) or in Morocco, where kittens have been recorded in late April (Sliwa et al. 2017). ...
The sand cat is one of the world’s least studied small cats. Our camera-trap survey, one of the largest undertaken in a desert system, generated over 1500 images of the species across 100 camera-traps distributed systematically over the 2400 km ² core area of the Uruq Bani Ma’arid Protected Area of the Empty Quarter, Saudi Arabia. The study revealed a much more significant and widespread sand cat population in the ecosystem than previously understood. Sand cats were detected across one-third of the core area in all major habitats, comprising escarpment plateau, sand dunes and interdunal gravel valleys. The species showed a marginal preference for the interior parallel dune system with interspersed gravel valleys where they also preferred sand dunes over the gravel valley in the hot season. There was no evidence of strong spatial interactions with other predators. The ecosystem’s larger predators (Arabian red fox and honey badger, and all records of wild and feral cats) were primarily associated with the escarpment plateau. The smaller Rueppell’s fox was the only other carnivore more consistently present in the main dune system. Sand cats were strictly nocturnal and 14% more active in the hot season than the cool season.
