Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
While desert heat makes most humans sluggish, many desert creatures are elegant and
swift. Dorcas gazelles are common, and you might also catch a glimpse of a rare, reddish
Cuvier's gazelle. Lizards you might see darting through the desert include skinks and
spiny-tailed lizards, and you might catch sight of the devilish-looking (though not espe-
cially poisonous) horned viper. Golden jackals are the most common predator in the Saha-
ra, though in the more remote parts of the Western Sahara a few desert-adapted cheetahs
may yet survive.
One less-than-charming fact about snake charming: to prevent them from biting handlers,
snakes' mouths are sometimes stitched closed. This often causes fatal mouth infections and
leaves snakes unable to feed. To discourage this practice, don't pose with or tip snake charm-
ers handling snakes whose mouths are stitched shut.
Mountain Wildlife
Forested mountain slopes are Morocco's richest wildlife habitats, where it's easy to spot
sociable Barbary macaques (also known as Barbary apes) in the Rif and Middle Atlas, es-
pecially around Azrou. Less easy to track are mountain gazelles, lynx and the endangered
mouflon
,
or Barbary sheep. The mouflon are now protected in a High Atlas preserve near
the Tizi n'Test, where its only predator is the critically endangered Barbary leopard - the
last population of leopards in North Africa.
Golden eagles soar in Atlas mountain updrafts, and High Atlas hikes might introduce
you to red crossbills, horned larks, acrobatic booted eagles, Egyptian vultures, and both
black and red kites. In springtime, butterflies abound in the mountains, including the scar-
let cardinal and bright-yellow Cleopatra.
