- Asiatic lion
- Aye-aye
- Black howler monkey
- Black lion tamarin
- Black rat
- Brown rat, Norway rat
- Brush-tailed bettong
- Capybara
- Common squirrel monkey
- De Brazza's Monkey
- Geoffroy's marmoset
- Goeldi's monkey
- Giant jumping rat
- Golden-headed lion tamarin
- Golden lion tamarin
- Grey mouse lemur
- Lac Alaotra gentle lemur, Bandro
- Lion-tailed macaque
- Livingstone's fruit bat
- Mongoose lemur
- White-faced saki
- Naked mole rat
- North American river otter
- Okapi
- Owl monkey
- Pygmy hippopotamus
- Pygmy slow loris
- Red panda
- Red ruffed lemur
- Ring-tailed lemur
- Sand cat
- Slender-tailed meerkat
- South American fur seal
- South American tapir
- Southern pudu
- Spiny mouse
- Two-toed sloth
- Western lowland gorilla
Sand cat
Scientific name: Felis margarita
Country: Mauritania, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Mali, Niger, Pakistan, Iran, Israel, Kazakhstan, Tunisia, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Western Sahara, Yemen
Continent: Africa, Asia
Diet: Lizards, small burrowing mammals
Food & feeding: Carnivore
Habitats: Deserts and semi-desert
Conservation status: Near threatened
Relatives: Wild cat, serval, cheetah.
Description: Small in size, only 40 cm long with a 25 cm tail, the sand cat is not much bigger than a domestic cat. The coat is a pale sand colour, soft and dense. The ears are widely spaced and can be flattened horizontally or even pointed downward. The jaws have large canine teeth, powerful claws and sand-gripping fur on the soles of the feet.
Lifestyle: To avoid the heat of the day in the desert, the sand cat lives in a deep burrow emerging at dusk to hunt. It moves in the shadows, slinking along, using its sensitive down-pointing ears to listen out for its burrowing prey beneath the surface of the ground. When it hears something, it rapidly digs out its prey.
Family & friends: Like most other cats, the sand cat is a loner, spending time with others only in the mating season.
Keeping in touch: Urine scent marks allow sand cats to keep track of neighbours.
Growing up: Litters are born in April and contain between two and four kittens. The kitten's eyes open at 12-16 days and the kittens stay with the mother until autumn.
Sand cats can apparently survive without ever drinking at all, getting all the fluids they need from the juices of their prey.
Conservation news: The sand cat is rarely seen, but the species is found over a large part of North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and Asia, so the global population is not currently at risk. In some countries they are protected. The population in Pakistan is believed to be at risk.
The sand cats at the Zoo are from the Arabian peninsula. Some people divide this species into four sub-species: the African population, the Arabian population, the Turkmenistan population and the Pakistan population.
