Wildlife of Saudi Arabia

The country has several extensive mountain ranges, deserts, highlands, steppes, hills, wadis, volcanic areas, lakes and over 1300 islands.

Another sandy desert, the Nefud, lies in the north central part of Saudi Arabia, and it is connected to the Rub' al Khali by a broad swathe of sand dunes and gravel plains known as Dahna.

Furthermore, the late Tertiary and the early Quaternary eras saw a period of climatic cooling that drove vegetation bands southwards, and the Arabian Peninsula received an influx of species from Eurasia.

[6] Studying the flora of Saudi Arabia is a daunting task because of the vast size of the kingdom; the general pattern of vegetation is now known but the exact distribution of the many species of flowering plant is poorly understood.

There are virtually no trees, and the plants are adapted for desert life and include dwarf shrubs such as Calligonum crinitum and saltbush, and several species of sedge.

[9] The Asir Mountains in the southwest of the country, and most of the western highlands of Yemen, support a distinct flora which has affinities with parts of East Africa.

The highest parts are clothed with cloud forests, southwestern Arabian montane woodlands which includes, on north-facing slopes, Juniperus procera and Euryops arabicus, draped with the lichen Usnea articulata, and on south-facing slopes, dwarf shrubs such as Rubus petitianus, Rosa abyssinica, Alchemilla crytantha, Senecio and Helichrysum abyssinicum, with Aloe sabae and Euphorbia in the driest locations.

[10] The Asir Mountains in the southwest of the country is where the critically endangered Arabian leopard is still to be found, and the broader region is also home to the hamadryas baboon with colonies reaching as far north as Baha, Taif, and the suburbs south of Mecca.

However, a captive breeding programme had been initiated at the Phoenix Zoo in the United States in the 1960s and the oryx has since been successfully reintroduced into the wild in the Mahazat as-Sayd Protected Area in Saudi Arabia, a fenced reserve of over 2,200 km2 (850 sq mi).

[14] MacQueen's bustard is a resident species that is dependent on good vegetation cover, often being found in areas with dense scrubby growth with shrubs such as Capparis spinosa.

For example, there is a hadith in Muwatta’ Imam Malik about Muslim pilgrims having to beware of the asad (lion) and fahd (cheetah) in the land, besides other animals.

[21] In 2020, footprints of humans, camels, buffalo, elephants and other species, dated to 120,000 years ago, were found in Tabuk Province near what was then a shallow lake.