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Mohammad, M.K.; Lahony, S.R.; Al-Rammahi, H.M.
First record of the Sand cat, _Felis margarita_ Loche, 1858 (Mammalia Carnivora, Felidae), from Iraq
2013 Zoology in the Middle East (59): 358-359
We provide here a first record of _Felis margarita _from Iraq including some data on measurements and notes on its habitat. The material for this study is composed of three specimens - two males and one female. A living male (male 1) and female (female 1) were presented to a local nursery in Baghdad and the owner indicated that the cats were brought alive from a desert area situated to the west of Al-Najaf city on January 27, 2012, and were sold to him as pets. The third specimen (male 2) is the stuffed skin of a male collected in roughly the same area, i.e. in the Al-Jufaira oasis (31ø55?'N,43ø59?'E) of the Al-Najaf desert, Al-Najaf Province in November 2012. The collection sites are dominated by sandy soils and dunes with some compact inter-dune soil and widely distributed shrubs - e.g. caper bush _Capparis spinosa_, colocynth _Citrullus colocynthis_, tamarisk _Tamarix _sp. and boxthorn _Lycium shawii_.
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