If you enjoyed reading 10 Most Facinating Animals in Qatar, this is just the right thing for you! After the most fascinating animals, here is part II; 5 more animals you may not know live in Qatar. Have a read and check if you knew or have already seen all the interesting animals that live on this peninsula with you and me!

1. Flamingos

Yes, the greater flamingo is also one of the animals people don’t usually expect to live in Qatar. They live by the mangroves and in the shallow water. Did you know that Flamingos gain their pink color from pigments in algae and crustaceans they consume? The flamingo is also a very social bird, as it lives with 20,000 – 200,000 friends and relatives in one area. What is also very impressive is that they like to synchronize their movements, and raise their wings or flag their heads all at the same time and in the same direction.

2. Bats

The Desert Long-eared Bat is a small pale sandy to dark brown bat, that is very used to living in the desert and barely vegetated, rocky regions. This bat has a few tricks to survive in the desert. Its first advantage is being a bat and that’s because bats use echolocation to find insects and other little animals to eat. This means it doesn’t have to have good vision or hunt in the day light hours. Can you imagine having ears the size of half of your entire body? This bat can, and it is assumed that the ears radiate heat off the body and cools the bat when it gets too hot. In Qatar one of the bat’s favorite dishes is the scorpion, and how convenient is it then that the bat is immune to the scorpions venom?

3. Desert Monitor Lizard

The Desert Monitor is a lizard living in our desert. In this region, it is one of the largest reptiles with a length of 20cm to 1m in adults. This animal lives with serious skills, climbing trees, digging and even swimming to find food. And how does it find food? With its tongue! The Desert Monitor has a forked tongue like the one of a snake and can detect chemical changes in the air with it. The Desert Monitor will then follow the traces, like we could follow a smell with the use of our nose.

4. Desert Hare

The Desert Hare or Cape Hare is the bunny we can find living in Qatar. Living in the desert as a little bunny can be tricky, but that’s why the Desert Hare is all geared up and prepared to face the heat. Like the bat, the Desert Hare has extraordinarily long ears to cool down; it has a very low metabolic rate and can live exclusively on salt water. When jumping around after sunset, the hare finds grip on the sand with the fur it has on the bottom of its feet, which will also protect him from the heat of the sand. Sadly, the Desert Hare still cannot survive many years in the wild, but will usually only live for one year.

5. Porpoises

Yes, there is another cool marine animal that lives in Qatar and it is the Finless Porpoise. At first sight, the Finless Porpoise just looks like a really cute dolphin, but it isn’t only different in appearance but also in behavior. The porpoise is tiny with a length of 1.5- 2 meters, has a round face and is missing the typical beak a dolphin has. It also has - you wouldn’t have guessed it – no fin! Instead of a fin it has a long ridge in the center of the back with horny tubercles that have sensitive nerve endings. Thus this ridge is an important sensory organ for the porpoise. It is also very shy and not as energetic and attention seeking as the dolphin.

Writer: Sarah Schroeder

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