The below-ground "cave dwellings" of the native Berber population, designed for coolness and protection, render the city and the area around it as a tourist and film makers' attraction.

[1] On June 27, 1931, a meteorite of unusual achondrite type and green color impacted at Tataouine;[3] about 12 kg of fragments were found.

[citation needed] In March 2015, it was briefly reported that ISIL was using Tataouine as a military base,[5] but later these claims were denied by the Tunisian government as false.

This bacteria and another closely related one which was named Ramlibacter henchirensis (from Henchir meaning in Tunisian dialect a field surrounded by stones or antique ruins) have the peculiar feature to be spherical during the day (forming a microbial cyst with a thick wall protecting them from desiccation, the extreme heat and the sun's UV) and become rod-like during the night when they need less protection, thus becoming able to move and colonize even the smallest cracks in rocks.

[18] The discovery and research around Ramlibacter tataouinensis is scientifically significant because it demonstrated that rod-like structures observed in another meteorite, the ALH 84001 discovered in Antartica, and thought for a time to be of extraterrestrial origin, could actually be terrestrial bacteria from the ground which had contaminated and then colonized the sample.

[19] Numerous fossils, including vegetal, trees, animals, and dinosaurs footprints have been found in the region, several being exhibited at the local Museum of Earth Memory.