| Al Saleel National Park | |
|---|---|
  Map of Oman | |
| Location | Sharqiyah, Oman |
| Coordinates | 22°21′47″N59°11′49″E / 22.363°N 59.197°E Coordinates: 22°21′47″N59°11′49″E / 22.363°N 59.197°E [1] |
| Area | 220 km2 (85 sq mi) |
The Al Saleel National Park is a wildlife reserve in the Sharqiyah region of Oman.
Ash-Sharqiyyah Region was the eastern minṭaqah (region) of the Sultanate of Oman. The capital of Ash-Sharqiyyah is Sur. On 28 October 2011 Ash Sharqiyah Region was split into Ash Sharqiyah North Governorate and Ash Sharqiyah South Governorate.
Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman, is an Arab country on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. Its official religion is Islam.
The park extends over an area of 220 square kilometres (85 sq mi), and is predominantly covered by forests of acacia trees. It is home to a number of rare species such as the Arabian gazelle, the Omani wild cat (“Al Senmar”) (Felis silvestris gordoni) and other animals which have made this environment their home, including the red fox, the Egyptian eagle (Neophron percnopterus) and others.
Acacia, commonly known as the wattles or acacias, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa and Australia, with the first species A. nilotica described by Linnaeus. Controversy erupted in the early 2000s when it became evident that the genus as it stood was not monophyletic, and that several divergent lineages needed to be placed in separate genera. It turned out that one lineage comprising over 900 species mainly native to Australia was not closely related to the mainly African lineage that contained A. nilotica—the first and type species. This meant that the Australian lineage would need to be renamed. Botanist Les Pedley named this group Racosperma, which was inconsistently adopted. Australian botanists proposed that this would be more disruptive than setting a different type species and allowing this large number of species to remain Acacia, resulting in the two African lineages being renamed Vachellia and Senegalia, and the two New World lineages renamed Acaciella and Mariosousa. This was officially adopted, but many botanists from Africa and elsewhere disagreed that this was necessary.
The Arabian gazelle(Gazella arabica) is a species of gazelle known from the Arabian Peninsula. Until recently, it was only known from a single lectotype specimen mistakenly thought to have been collected on the Farasan Islands in the Red Sea in 1825. A 2013 genetic study of the lectotype specimen revealed that skull and skin do not stem from the same individual but belong to two distinct lineages of the mountain gazelle, necessitating restriction of the lectotype to the skin to conserve nomenclatural stability. A later study formalized the use of Gazella arabica for the Arabian lineage of the mountain gazelle, and synonymized Gazella erlangeri with G. arabica.
The red fox is the largest of the true foxes and one of the most widely distributed members of the order Carnivora, being present across the entire Northern Hemisphere from the Arctic Circle to North Africa, North America and Eurasia. It is listed as least concern by the IUCN. Its range has increased alongside human expansion, having been introduced to Australia, where it is considered harmful to native mammals and bird populations. Due to its presence in Australia, it is included on the list of the "world's 100 worst invasive species".
