Category: Iran Wildlife

The Persian onager (Equus hemionus onager), also called the Persian wild ass or Persian zebra, is a subspecies of onager (Asiatic wild ass) native to Iran. It is listed as “critically endangered” and “extremely rare”. Persian wild asses are known to inhabit mountain steppes, semi-desert or desert plains. They are usually found in desert steppes.…

The Laristan Wild Sheep is one of the rarest kinds of wild sheep in the world, living only in Laristan, Fars Province, to Bandar Abbas, Hormozgan. It is also one of the smallest wild sheep and its numbers have sharply declined in the recent decades. There has so far been no study conducted on the…

The chukar partridge or chukar (Alectoris chukar) is a Eurasian upland gamebird in the pheasant family Phasianidae. It has been considered to form a superspecies complex along with the rock partridge, Philby’s partridge and Przevalski’s partridge and treated in the past as conspecific particularly with the first. This partridge has well marked black and white…

he Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus) is also known as moon bear and white-chested bear. It is a medium-sized bear species and largely adapted to arboreal life. It is found in the Himalayas, in the northern parts of the Indian Subcontinent, Korea, northeastern China, the Russian far east, the Honshū and Shikoku islands of Japan,…

The Persian leopard (Panthera pardus ciscaucasica syn. Panthera pardus saxicolor), also called the Caucasian leopard, is the largest leopard subspecies, and is native to northern Iran, eastern Turkey, the Caucasus mountains, southern Turkmenistan, and parts of western Afghanistan. It is endangered throughout its range with fewer than 871–1,290 mature individuals and a declining population trend.…

The Caspian seal (Pusa caspica) is one of the smallest members of the earless seal family and unique in that it is found exclusively in the brackish Caspian Sea. They are found not only along the shorelines, but also on the many rocky islands and floating blocks of ice that dot the Caspian Sea. In…

The Persian fallow deer is a rare ruminant mammal belonging to the family Cervidae. Its taxonomic status is disputed, with some maintaining it as a subspecies of the fallow deer, while others treat it as a separate species, Dama mesopotamica, where the Spanish word “Dama” means “fallow deer”. Description Persian fallow deer are physically larger…

The Caspian red deer (Cervus elaphus maral), is one of the easternmost subspecies of red deer that is native to areas between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea such as Crimea, Asia Minor, the Caucasus Mountains region bordering Europe and Asia, and along the Caspian Sea region in Iran. The Caspian red deer is sometimes referred…

The bezoar ibex (Capra aegagrus aegagrus) is a vulnerable subspecies of wild goat, native to Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iraq, Iran, Russia and Turkey. It has been extirpated from Lebanon. They were also introduced to the Florida Mountains of New Mexico. The bezoar goat is found in the mountains of Asia Minor and across the Middle…

The Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) is a medium-sized cat native to European and Siberian forests, Central Asia and East Asia. It is also known as the European lynx, common lynx, the northern lynx, and the Siberian or Russian lynx. While its conservation status has been classified as “Least Concern”, populations of Eurasian lynx have been reduced…