Popular Animals on the Travel Guide Morocco

Addax Antilope
Addax: "Addax" is the Latin name for the animal.
Location: The Sahara.
Habitat: Desert.
Description: The coat varies from pure white to pale gray, with a white pattern running across the face from the cheeks to the nose. The horns, which average three feet long, are long and thin, and make 2 or 3 twists. Females have thinner horns than males. The hooves have a wide base, which is an adaptation to sand and soft ground. The Addax grows to about five and a half feet long and it weighs up to 300 pounds.
Behaviour: The Addax is well adapted to life in the desert, even in the most arid parts where there is virtually no vegetation. It survives on the sparse growth that occurs in the desert after the rare meager rainfalls. It can survive for long periods without drinking water, and it must travel great distances to find adequate food supplies.  Reproduction: Gestation lasts 10 to 12 months, after which one offspring is produced.

Mangabey Monkey
Mangabey: "Mangabey" = from "Mangabey," a region of Madagascar.
Location: Subsaharan Western and Northern Africa.
Habitat: Terrestrial and arboreal. Tropical forests.
Description: The Mangabey’s body is powerful although its form is slender, with very long legs. The coat on the back is gray, while the underside is white, and on the head there is a reddish brown cap. The Mangabey reaches about 26 inches and it weighs about 12 kg.
Behaviour: The sooty Mangabey lives in small groups of 4 to 12 individuals, preferably on the ground and among the lower layers of the forest. The tail is partly prehensile and helps it to hold onto branches. It feeds on plant matter, but also eats insects and birds eggs. It is a very social animal, and the group has a highly developed communications system, which functions by means of shrieks and other sounds as well as by means of expressive facial gestures. Its main enemy is the leopard.
Reproduction: Nothing is known about its reproductive biology or behaviour.

Barbary sheep, aoudad
Barbary: "Barbary" refers to the northern African countries called the Barbary Coast. "Aoudad" is the Berber (Barbar) word for the animal. Location: Northern Africa.
Habitat: Terrestrial. Montana regions of the Sahara.
Description: The colour is generally uniform pale brown, sometimes lighter and tending to beige. The coat is dense and of average length, with a long fringe of soft and very light-coloured hairs on the throat, chest, and front legs. The horns are thick and up to 33 inches long in males! These sheep can grow to over five feet long and can weigh over 300 pounds, with the females much smaller.
Behaviour: The colour of the Barbary sheep blends perfectly with the rocks where it lives. In the evening, it climbs down to the sparsely vegetated valley floor to feed. It lives in family groups led by a large male, and other adult males are excluded. Old males and pregnant females are solitary. It moves among rocks and overhangs with great agility, leaping impressive lengths.
Reproduction: Gestation lasts 22 to 23 weeks, after which one or two young are born.

Large North African gerbil
Gerbil: "Gerbil" comes from the French word "gerbille."
Location: Northern Africa.
Habitat: Terrestrial. Grasslands and semi-desert areas.
Description: The body is long and light. The entire body is light or dark brown, depending on the environment, but the tip of the tail is often darker. The eyes and ears are large in proportion to the body. Length of the gerbil is up to ten inches. It weighs about one ounce.
Behaviour: This gerbil lives in a simple burrow which it digs itself and which has a single entrance. It is active at night, but when the weather becomes too harsh, it prefers to stay in its burrow. It feeds on seeds, roots, and grass. Its main enemies are snakes. Reproduction: Gestation lasts 20 days and the female usually gives birth to four young. All 82 different species of gerbils dwell in dry regions

Wiegmann’s burrowing lizard
Lizard: "Lizard" comes from the Middle English word "lesard."
Location: Northwest Africa.
Habitat: Terrestrial. Sandy and loamy soil regions.
Description: This species has a fairly small head and tiny eyes are positioned beneath small transparent scales. There are no limbs, and the body, cylindrical and elongated, is covered with scales arranged in regular rings. The tail is extremely short and conical. It reaches a maximum of 10 inches.
Behaviour: This species is a burrower, as the name suggests, spending most of the day excavating long tunnels, inside which it can move as quickly backward as forward. It only occasionally ventures to the surface. It feeds almost exclusively on ants and termites, often hunting its prey under stones.
Reproduction: The eggs are retained in the females body until they hatch and she gives live birth in late summer to 2 to 5 fairly large offspring.

Blue whale
Rorqual: "Rorqual" is an old Norse word for "red whale."
Location: Worldwide, but especially in the Southern Hemisphere.
Habitat: Aquatic. Oceanic, as far as the coasts of Antarctica.
Description: This is probably the largest animal that EVER lived! It is grayish blue with some paler spots, and the tips and undersides of the fins are often white. In the mouth there are 270 to 400 baleen plates on each side. The enormous stomach can contain up to a ton of food. The blue whales grows to an average length of 80 ft, but can reach 100 ft! An average weight is over 140 tons.
Behaviour: Data relating to the life history of this species are from fragmentary observations gathered in all the world’s seas at various times. In addition, the species is now virtually extinct because of over-hunting in earlier years, and this hampers further study.
Reproduction: Mating takes place in summer and the gestation period lasts 11 months. The single calf is 24 feet long at birth.

Barbary apes
Location: Barbary apes live in Morocco and north Algeria. Barbary apes are the only non-human primate to live in Europe (Gibraltar). They are a monkey and not an ape
Barbary apes live for 22 years.
Description: Body length: 38-76cm, Tail length: vestigial, Weight: 5-13kg. Barbary apes have yellow-grey to grey-brown fur. Their under-parts are paler, and their faces are dark. Barbary apes lack a tail.
Habitat: There is a population (currently about 100) that lives on Barbary apes inhabit mixed cedar and oak forest up to 1600-2160m. Gibraltar, which are the last representatives of stock that once inhabited Europe. The British Army is now responsible for their care, and their numbers are often replenished with monkeys from Africa. Barbary apes inhabit mixed cedar and oak forest up to 1600-2160m.
Reproduction: After a gestation period of 196 days, females give birth to one young, which weighs about 450g at birth.

Fennec fox
Fennec: "Fennec" comes from the Arabic word "fenek," meaning "fox."
Location: Northern Africa and the Middle East.
Habitat: Desert, especially in areas and where there are dunes.
Description: One of the smallest of the foxes, the Fennec has adapted to life in the desert. It has huge, triangular ears. Its tiny body is pale beige with a very soft coat. The soles of the feet are completely covered with long hair to enable it to walk on sand. The Fennec usually weighs less than three pounds.
Behaviour: This sociable fox lives in small groups of 10 to 15 individuals. It is nocturnal, and spends the day in a den dug in the sand. It feeds on insects and small lizards, and sometimes eats plants. It can go for a long time without drinking. It can dig at great speed to capture prey or to escape from an enemy.
Reproduction: After a gestation period of about 50 days the female gives birth to between two and five cubs in March or April.