Mammifères Sauvages Du Maroc: Peuplement, Répartition, Ecologie [Wild Mammals Of Morocco: Populations, Distribution, Ecology]

About this book

Language: French, with English and Arab abstract

This work describes about a hundred valid species having existed since historical time on the present territory of the Kingdom of Morocco. Among them, eight have already gone extinct, two have not recently been observed and are on the verge of extinction, two are critically endangered, and several others are threatened with extinction either by human activities or because of their very restricted geographic range, or both.

Until the end of the 21st Century, the mammals in Morocco remained poorly known and it is only at the beginning of the 20th Century that Angel Cabrera published a first synthesis of knowledge. Then Jean-Bertrand Panouse’s first published maps of distribution in a new synthesis restricted to large mammals. In 1986 the first atlas of all wild mammals of Morocco was published with maps covering the whole territory. Thirty years later the present work provides an updated knowledge and a cartography using grid maps of 0.25° longitude by 0.25° latitude.

In addition to the distribution maps of present wild mammals (second half of the XXth Century), this collective work sets back the recent mammal fauna in a historical perspective. It includes chapters dedicated to fossil species which are now better known and to mammals in rock art. It then deals with each order of present mammal species. All monographs start with scientific and vernacular names, a list of synonyms found in the literature and sometimes comments on the specific status and on the phylogeny of the taxon. Description and measurements precede the striking elements of the species distribution. Biological and ecological data, restricted to Morocco or even to the Maghreb, can lead to conservation features of species. An identification key of Rodent cranial remains from owl pellets completes this work.