Abstract
Little is known about the ecology of the Sand Cat Felis margarita throughout its range in the deserts of northern Africa to central Asia. We present observations of the Sand Cat in the southern Kyzylkum Desert, Uzbekistan, potentially preying upon a large bird and returning to the kill on subsequent nights. This record contributes to the knowledge about the feeding ecology and varied diet of the Sand Cat and its opportunistic hunting strategy.
Highlights
The distribution of the Sand Cat Felis margarita ranges from northern Africa to central Asia across which it almost exclusively inhabits sandy and stony deserts (Schauenberg 1974)
Components of its diet were described in Uzbekistan in the 1960s from stomach contents of hunted cats (Schauenberg 1974), which mainly consisted of small burrowing rodents
Other studies from central Asia summarised by Heptner & Sludskii (1992), using stomach contents, faecal samples, or a combination of both, found Sand Cat diet dominated by gerbils Gerbillus and jerboa species like Allactaga, Dipus, and Paradious; this varied, comprising of other mammals such as Tolai Hare Lepus tolai and Souslik Spermophillus leptodactilus, reptiles such as snakes Spalerosophis diodema and Coluber karelini and gecko Teratoscincus, birds such as Turtle Dove Streptopelia turtur, Crested Lark Galerida cristata, Saxaul Jay Podoces panderi, and Desert Sparrow Passer simplex, a single observation of a Pallas Sand Grouse Syrrhaptes paradoxus, and arthropods such as Coleoptera, Phalangids, and Scorpiones
Summary
The distribution of the Sand Cat Felis margarita ranges from northern Africa to central Asia across which it almost exclusively inhabits sandy and stony deserts (Schauenberg 1974). Very little is known about its ecology and while some aspects have been studied in Israel (Abbadi 1991), Morocco (Sliwa et al 2013; Breton et al 2016; Sliwa et al 2017; Breton & Sliwa 2018), and Iran (Ghafaripour et al 2017), the Central Asian Sand Cat F. m. Burnside et al (2014) confirmed a breeding population to be still present in the southern Kyzylkum Desert, Uzbekistan (Fig. 1), aligning modern data with the species distribution reported by Heptner & Sludskii (1992) Very little is known about its ecology and while some aspects have been studied in Israel (Abbadi 1991), Morocco (Sliwa et al 2013; Breton et al 2016; Sliwa et al 2017; Breton & Sliwa 2018), and Iran (Ghafaripour et al 2017), the Central Asian Sand Cat F. m. thinobius remains understudied. Burnside et al (2014) confirmed a breeding population to be still present in the southern Kyzylkum Desert, Uzbekistan (Fig. 1), aligning modern data with the species distribution reported by Heptner & Sludskii (1992)
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