extinct in the wild

A vast expanse of sand and rock, the Arabian Desert is the largest desert in Asia. Covering 2.3 million square km, it spans almost the entire Arabian Peninsula and is shared among nine nations. With huge, featureless stretches of sand to the south, salt-encrusted plains to the east, and a temperature that can reach 50°C, this extreme environment seems almost too harsh for survival. But several desert specialists live here, including scorpions, sand cats, gazelles – and, once again, after a period of absence, the subject of today’s post, the Arabian oryx.