Egypt has a rich and diverse wildlife that reflects the country’s unique position at the junction of three major zoogeographic zones, with species from each of these geographic realms represented. Mediterranean and Saharo-Sindian species form the largest component, with small numbers of Irano-Turanian and Afrotropical species that remain from past wetter ages. The wide range of ecosystems also influences diversity. Only a few species are endemic to Egypt, but a number are restricted to Egypt and neighboring countries.

 

From the colorful shores of the Nile River to the majestic Red Sea, the land of Egypt teems with animal life, much of it rarely seen by the outside world.

 

There are 106 species of Reptilia and Amphibia in Egypt; six are endemic and one, the Egyptian Tortoise, is endangered. The most numerous reptiles are the 49 species of lizards; of these the largest group is the Gekkonidae. Among the 36 snake species, nine are poisonous and a further nine are rear-fanged snakes that are also poisonous although they are less of a risk for humans due to the necessity of getting part of the victim to the back of their jaws in order to inject venom.

 

Egypt has a rich biodiversity and a vast number of animal species found on its soil. But in spite of this richness, Egypt’s wildlife is threatened by ongoing smuggling and illegal hunting, while captive animals suffer from a range of ill treatment that goes ignored by officials.

 

Egypt has some 300 types of birds, with about half of them being breeding species within the country. Wild animals are few, except for the hyena, lynx, mongoose, and wild boar, the last-named inhabiting the Nile Delta.The Egyptian Wolf is rare and endangered canid, inhabits the a few remote regions. BLanford’s fox occur in Sinai Peninsula. The ibex may be found in the Sinai, and gazelles in the deserts.

 

A DNA study has demontrated that the so-called Egyptian jackal, until now thought to be a subspecies of the golden jackal, is actually a relative of the grey wolf. Genetic information shows that the species, Canis aureus lupaster, is more closely related to Himalayan and Indian wolves than golden jackals.

 

There are also true wildcats in Egypt. Of the 35 species of wildcats, Egypt is home to as many as six, and a seventh, the Lion Panthera leo, probably became extinct in the late pharaonic period. Some of the six are extremely rare, and may no longer exist in Egypt, but certainly some of those that do still stalk the Egyptian landscape are some of the most interesting, including the small Felis Silvestris, or Wild Cat, which looks very similar to and sometimes interbreeds with domestic cats, and may be the forerunner of the domestic cat. Others small cats include the Felis Chaus (Swamp Cat) and the Felis margarita (Sand Cat). Larger cats include the Acinonyx jubatus (Cheetah), Panthera pardus (Leopard) - Leopard are likely extinct in Egypt, although they may occur in the Eastern Desert and the Felis caracal (Caracal).

 

About 20 species of Egyptian mammals are endangered. Of these the Cheetah is now found only in the Qattara Depression, the Barbary Sheep is restricted to Gebel Uweinat and Gebel Elba and the population of Slender-horned Gazelles is seriously reduced. A number of small mammals that are found along the Mediterranean coast are under threat from development.

 

Most Egyptian snakes are harmless. The African egg eating snake is a widespread species with a range covering most of Africa and parts of Arabia. In Egypt it is restricted to the southern part of the Nile Valley. As the name suggests, it feeds on eggs and everything about it is geared to the consumption of eggs The Egg eating Snake is a very slender reptile, generally under a meter long and colored gray with black diamonds. Another helpful snake is the Sand Boa Eryx colubrinus), which is only a couple of feet long, but very deadly to the rodent population. Other unusual snakes include the Banded Snake (Coluber sinai) and the Hoogstraal’s Cat Snake (Telescopus hoogstraali), both found in the Sinai.

 

Among the 36 snake species, nine are poisonous and a further nine are rear-fanged snakes that are also poisonous although they are less of a risk for humans due to the necessity of getting part of the victim to the back of their jaws in order to inject venom

 

Cats and dogs have a special history in Egypt, and both were considered manifestations of gods.

Dogs and Foxes, in the family Canidae, number thirty five species worldwide, with six of these in Egypt. They differ widely in Egypt, ranging from the Fennec Fox (Vulpes zerda) to the Wolf (Canis lupus). In general, wolves are relatively larger than foxes. Wolves are much more difficult to distinguish from Jackals, and according to one expert, the best distinction in the field is their gait. Wolves lope while jackals trot. At one time there was also a seventh species of dog in Egypt, the African Wild Dog, but it became extinct from the country during the early Dynastic Period.

 

While they inhabit the Western and some parts of the Eastern Deserts, they are not really a desert animal, though they do inhabit the semi-arid northern coastal desert. They like agricultural areas, wasteland and desert margins, rocky areas and cliffs, as well as the lakeshore at Lake Nasser.

 

These animals are largely nocturnal, but are reported to be active at dusk. They make their dens in natural caves, tombs or dense scrub. They are omnivorous and opportunistic, and have been recorded feeding on insects, snails, fish, chickens, young goats and sheep, as well as melons, watermelons, corn, small mammals, birds and carrion, and are known to carry off putrid or otherwise seemingly inedible items.

 

These canine have excellent hearing and scent, as well as good eyesight. They are sociable, frequently living in packs, or more often pairs. Mating occurs in early spring, with a gestation period of two months. Wild jackals give birth usually in March, April or May to a litter of from four to five pups, though up to eight have been recorded.

 

The jackal's voice is usually a howl, often followed by a short yelp delivered just after sunset and before dawn. They bark when excited, growl when annoyed and he female is reported to issue a "chack chack" with closed mouth as a warning to pups.

When many people all over the world think of Egypt, they think of the Pyramids with a graceful caravan of camels passing by them. Its easy to imagine the caravans of the traders heading into the desert. With no food or water needed for the beasts of burden, we fancy that the journey was made easier. It is a romantic dream of many people to view such a caravan. The truth is, by far, stranger than the myths that have grown up around the camel, the beast of burden which helped spread wealth around the ancient world.

One of the most enduring and misunderstood myths about the camel is it's ability to go days without water. Myth tells us that the camel stores water in its hump. The truth is the hump, or humps in the case of the Bactrian camel, are a fatty deposit that provides energy when food is scarce.

 

When a camels energy reserves become low from lack of food, the hump shrinks and becomes soft and will actually flop over to one side. The resilient nature of the animal can be seen in the rapid return of the hump to its normal firm upright self after just a few days of good grazing.

 

The camel stores water in its blood stream, an interesting physiological process. The camel has developed, over the centuries, a unique water saving biology. Capable of losing forty percent of its body's weight before becoming distressed, it is able to go five to seven days before having to drink. The amount it drinks when water is available would cause severe problems in most animals, up to 21 gallons in about 10 minutes. If moisture-laden forage is available, a camel will not need as much water. The water it drinks can be too salty or brackish for other animals.

 

The camel's mouth, stomach, and teeth have all developed to allow it to eat plants that are not palatable to other desert animals. The camel's mouth is tough and rubbery so that thorns and branches won't damage it. The thirty-four sharp teeth allow it to bite off tough bites of almost anything, and when forage is short a camel can subsist on meats, skin and bones. Camels are ruminants, similar to cows, with three stomachs. They don't chew their food. They eat by swallowing their food whole and allowing it to be partially digested by the stomachs before being chewed as a cud later.

 

The history of the camel is just as interesting as the animal itself. Evolving in North America, the camel apparently crossed the land bridge over the Bering Strait during prehistoric times. After a time, camels became domesticated, and now the only wild camels are a small population of 500-700 animals in the Gobi desert. Asia and Africa are home to domesticated camels only. Camels were introduced to Australia and a few feral animals exist in the wilds there. An experiment introducing the camel to the North American desert in the 1800's was unsuccessful, although occasional reports of a camel sighting are received.

 

While having a reputation for being an unpleasant animal, the camel is actually a friendly animal. The grunting and groaning when rising are similar to a grunt from us upon lifting a heavy weight. A distressed camel will spit a noxious stream of stomach contents, but generally a camel is a pleasant, hard working, intelligent animal.

 

Throughout recorded history, the camel has been a helper to the desert dwellers. The camel assisted in providing transportation, shelter, fuel and food. The camel is able to carry loads as heavy as 900 pounds, although normally a camel will only carry a third of that. The camels hide provides tents for shelter, and the meat is said to be similar to veal, although a little tougher. The milk is actually more nutritious than cows milk, and is used fresh as a drink, as well as being made into cheese. The camel's dung can be used as a fuel with no drying necessary.

 

Many nomadic tribes used the camels in the past, but as technology improves fewer people of Egypt use the camel. Now, the main purpose of camels is for tourist rides and racing. Let us hope that the symbol of the desert traders continues on for many more generations. Gliding across the sands with that characteristic rocking gait, giving a romantic, exotic air to the pyramids of Egypt, the camel will forever be an important part of the way people imagine Egypt.

The Nile crocodile (Crocodilus niloticus) actually has a number of suggested subspecies that mostly range through various parts of Africa. It was called msh in Old Egyptian and was referred to by some twenty other words.

Considerable variation exists throughout the range of the Nile crocodile. Generally, it is a large crocodilian, in fact the largest of the African crocodilian, averaging five meters in length but reportedly reaching six meters in rare instances. There are dubious reports of seven meter animals having existed, but these are hard to verify. It is conceivable that some now living in Lake Nasser may attain considerable size. They are known to attain weights of up to 775 kilograms, or about 1,500 pounds. Males are often up to 30 percent larger than the females.

 

However, there is some evidence that Nile crocodiles in cooler countries, such as. South Africa, reach slightly smaller adult sizes of perhaps four meters. There are two known population of dwarf Nile crocodiles living on the extreme limits of the species' range, in Mali and even the Sahara Desert! However, these are probably not a subspecies at all, but rather populations with stunted growth due to environmental variables. Due to suboptimal conditions, adults average between two and three meters. Juveniles are dark olive brown with black cross-banding on the tail and body. This banding becomes fainter in adults.

 

Though crocodiles in general look much like alligators, they can be distinguished by their longer, narrower snout and their fourth tooth, which ticks out from the lower jaw rather than fitting neatly into the upper jaw.

 

In water, crocodiles swim mostly with their tails. Though their back feet are webbed, they rarely use them underwater. On land, they do use their powerful legs to move about, and they only look slow. Nile Crocodiles have been known to gallop at speeds of about thirty miles per hour over short distances.

 

Nile Crocodiles have a wide habitat preferences, reflecting their success and distribution. They live in lakes, rivers, freshwater swamps and brackish water. Sub-adults disperse into different habitats, away from breeding areas, when they reach a length of approximately 1.2 meters. Nile crocodiles modify their habitat by digging dens (usually with their snouts and feet) into which they retreat from adverse conditions such as temperature extremes.

 

During ancient times, the crocodile not only inhabited the entire length of the Nile, but also was found in canals and pools, as well as in Lake Moeris, in the Fayoum. It rested there on sandbanks, baking in the sun. Over time, the crocodile's range in Egypt decreased, but really were only eliminated from the Nile in Egypt only after the building of the Aswan Dams.

Not only were the great jaws of the reptile feared but also its tail. A blow from a large crocodile's tale could smash the backbone of its victim. Only the adult hippopotamus was safe from the crocodile. Camels, donkeys, cattle, horses and even water birds, except for the trochilos (Pluvianus aegyptiacus), which sits on the crocodile's nose and picks off vermin, were dragged into the depths.

 

Although the juveniles are generally restricted to eating small aquatic invertebrates and insects, they soon move onto larger vertebrates, including fish, amphibians and other reptiles. Adults, however, can potentially take a wide range of large vertebrates, including antelope, buffalo, young hippos, and large cats. Nevertheless, Fish and smaller vertebrates often form the greatest part of their diet. . They also have a reputation as man killers. Along with hippos and lions, crocodiles account for perhaps a few hundred deaths and disappearances each year, although exact figures are very hard to verify. Nile crocodiles will also often scavenge from carcasses, together with a number of other animals, all of which seem to tolerate each others' presence.

 

Several prey animals have been found wedged under submerged branches and stones, leading to reports that the crocodiles store unwanted prey until a later date. however, crocodiles will certainly avoid rotting meat. When feeding, a number of individuals will hold onto a carcass with their powerful jaws whilst twisting their bodies. The anchorage provided by the other individuals allows large chunks to be torn off for easier swallowing. A few lone individuals have been reported to wedge prey between branches in order to provide the anchorage necessary for such actions to be effective, which could even be claimed to be a form of primitive tool use.

 

Other cooperative feeding behavior has been reported, such as the action of many animals to cordon off an area of water to concentrate fish within. A hierarchy of feeding order is often observed in such situations, with more dominant animals feeding first. Groups of crocodiles will often move onto land to scavenge from kills made up to several hundred meters from the water. Adults have also been observed fishing using their bodies and tails to corral the fish towards the bank, where they are concentrated, and picked up with a sideways snatch of the jaws.

 

It has been observed that social status may influence an individual's feeding success, with less dominant animals tending to eat less in situations where they come into frequent social contact with other, more dominant individuals.

 

The ancient Egyptians came into conflict with the crocodile when it was necessary to drive herds across a ford in the Nile. Although a magical spell was spoken at the same time, crocodiles were not affected, nor were magical gestures and entreating verses as effective as frightening cries by the herder. Particularly at risk were swimmers or those whose jobs took them onto or into the Nile. These included sailors, water carriers, fishermen, boat builders, launderers and the many marsh workers. In the Instructions of Khety, as published by Hellmut Brunner, a despondent schoolboy was threatened with having to live like the launderer among the crocodiles and hippopotami.

 

In ancient Egypt, the crocodile was both hunted and worshipped because of its extreme strength. In the region south of Khartoum, often far from the banks of the Nile, near waterholes or animal herds, it may unexpectedly rise from the water with a meter-long leap to crush its victim. Several ancient tomb scenes depicted a crocodile grabbing a baby hippopotamus as it emerged from its mother during birth. However, the adult hippopotamus, capable of biting a crocodile in half, was and is its only enemy besides humans. Other ancient tomb scenes showed crocodiles mating.

 

The crocodile is usually a part of Nile scenes or papyrus swamp landscapes, showing its preferred territory. From the Old Kingdom until Roman times, it is shown in the midst of shoals of fish, its main food, which the Nile provided a plentiful supply until the 1960s to 1970s when the Aswan High Dam was constructed.

 

Various writers and travelers of the ancient world, including Plutarch, Pliny and Aelianus, observed the daily habits of the crocodile, reporting that it settled itself on an east-facing sandbank "with idle feet" when the sun rose, with wide-open "fearsome jaws". In the afternoon, it turned westward, and in the evening entered the water.

 

The crocodile is usually silent. Yet, it was accorded the honor of inclusion among the animal musicians of the Turin Satirical Papyrus. If the animal is frightened or wounded, a gruesome roar or piercing scream may escape it.

 

However, man could master the crocodile. The thousands of crocodile bodies that were placed in ancient temples and caves prove this to be so. When hunted, the weapon of choice was the harpoon. Their savagery was also harnessed by man. Attempts were made to tame crocodiles caught young, although those were not successful. However, when the Egyptians filled the moats around the fort at Sile with crocodiles, as recorded by the second century BC Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, they were probably as well protected as we are today by defensive weapons.

 

The crocodile played a meaningful role not only in secular aspects of ancient Egypt but also in mythology, magic and metaphor (imagery). Its mythical and magical names were Chentekhtai, Nephoros, Petesukhos, Maga, Winti, but most often Soknopaios and Sobek (Greek Sukhos). The animal was worshipped as a god (the crocodile-headed god) Sobek, from the marshes of the Nile Delta to the sandbanks of Gebel es-Silsila, around Lake Qarun in the Fayoum, as well as near Thebes. Another god associated with the crocodile was Ammut, who could be depicted as a composite mythical creature whose head, and therefore the most essential aspect, was that of a crocodile. Her name meant "female devourer", or more fully, "female devourer of the dead". In this role, as an underworld deity, she was also called "great of death" and "eater of hearts", and was supposed to destroy those who had led wicked lives

According to Herodotus in the 5th century BC, some Egyptians kept crocodiles as pampered pets. In Sobek's temple in Arsinoe (at one time known as Crocodilopolis), a crocodile was kept in the pool of the temple, where it was fed, covered with jewelry, and worshipped. When the crocodiles died, they were embalmed, mummified, placed in sarcophagi, and then buried in a sacred tomb. Many mummified crocodiles have been found in Egyptian tombs, and even crocodile eggs.

 

The crocodile was also associated with the great gods Re, Geb, Seth and Osiris. In the Pyramid Texts, this dangerous aquatic reptile was recognized by its "

wrinkled or rough face," its form, a combination of jackal and snake, and its color, designated as "turquoise-green". Tales of its sexual potency were inspired in the Pyramid Text, Spell 510, according to which the king changed into a crocodile before robbing husbands of their wives.

 

As a nocturnal being, the crocodile played a significant part in mythical and magical contexts, as well as in imagery. There, it served as "the symbol of all maliciousness," It was said, the name of "the man who is tired of life" reeks more "than the stench of crocodiles." Nevertheless, the crocodile was used as a man's name from the Old Kingdom onward and was the emblem of the sixth Upper Egyptian nome (province).

 

Nevertheless, according to the Theban cosmogony, the Golden Age would be characterized by "no crocodiles thieving" (and "no snakes biting"). Only for the lover was the crocodile "as harmless as a mouse" when he "enters the waters" to hurry to his beloved.

 

Even when Christianity arose in Egypt, there continued to be mythology connected with the Crocodile. According to Athanasius, a fourth century AD patriarch of Alexandria, Saint Anthony was able to control the reptile with prayer.