{"id":1337,"date":"2026-07-23T06:55:55","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T06:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=1337"},"modified":"2026-07-23T06:55:55","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T06:55:55","slug":"how-a-youtube-video-accidentally-proved-the-existence-of-libyas-desert-ghosts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=1337","title":{"rendered":"How a YouTube video accidentally proved the existence of Libya\u2019s \u2018desert ghosts\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"How<\/div>

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It\u2019s not every day that a YouTube video triggers a major wildlife discovery, yet that\u2019s exactly what Mohammed Almuntasir unknowingly did when he hit upload in 2017.<\/p>\n

Clocking in at just 18 seconds, the clip showed a fun-sized feline curling up under the shade of a desert shrub in the photographer\u2019s native Libya. Almost a decade later, it was confirmed as the first documented evidence that the North African country was home to the sand cat, a wild felid that is as elusive as it is adorable.<\/p>\n

A longtime field photographer<\/a> of plants and animals across the North African country, it was not that Almuntasir had not realized what he was looking at. He had seen sand cats in Libya previously, but their nocturnal nature had foiled his attempts to capture footage.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as I saw the animal, I knew it was a sand cat because I had seen the species before at night,\u201d Almuntasir told CNN via email.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, I had never been able to photograph it because I did not have a camera suitable for night photography, or camera traps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almuntasir assumed the diminutive desert cats \u2014 which typically<\/a> grow to a maximum of 22.5 inches (57 centimeters) and 7.5 pounds (3.5 kilograms) \u2014 had already been documented in his homeland.<\/p>\n

Yet despite some scattered reports dating back to the mid-20th century, the sand cat (Felis margarita<\/em>) had never been officially verified as native to Libya, Firas Hayder, an expert on North African small carnivores, told CNN; instead, it was primarily associated with Sahara regions across other North African countries like Morocco, as well as Southwest and Central Asia.<\/p>\n

Hence Hayder\u2019s shock when he contacted Almuntasir a few weeks after the video was posted, and the photographer nonchalantly confirmed that \u2014 true to the YouTube video\u2019s title \u2014 \u201csand cat in Libya\u201d had indeed been filmed in the Al-Hamada Al-Hamra region of the Libyan Desert, close to the Tunisian border.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told him, \u2018No!\u2019\u201d laughed Hayder, a wildlife ecologist and North Africa regional coordinator for the African Small Carnivore Research Initiatives, a nonprofit headquartered at South Africa\u2019s Sol Plaatje University.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019For you, it is normal, but for us not.\u2019 He was surprised. He told me, \u2018Are you sure?\u2019 And I said, \u2018Yes, this is the first record.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

From there, the duo joined forces on an eight-year effort to collate documented sightings of sand cats \u2014 as well as Saharan striped polecats \u2014 in Libya, culminating in \u201cRediscovering desert ghosts,\u201d a research paper published<\/a> in the Journal of Arid Environments in February this year.<\/p>\n

A collaboration of seven researchers, the study saw Hayder quarterback the operation remotely, teaching Almuntasir how to record GPS coordinates of where the sand cats were sighted. The photographer worked closely with local guides to track and observe the animals.<\/p>\n

Almuntasir quickly realized it would be an \u201cextremely challenging\u201d undertaking. Hunting mostly at night for rodents and reptiles, sand cats are prolific diggers: they are known to stay in burrows during the hottest daylight hours, as well as burying both feces and remains of kills to eat later. With water at a premium, the cats can survive solely on the moisture received by drinking the blood of their prey.<\/p>\n

Known to travel huge distances and with sand quickly sweeping away paw prints, the elusiveness of the naturally camouflaged species is a key contributing factor to their under-researched status \u2014 kittens were only photographed in the wild<\/a> for the first time in 2017.<\/p>\n

That trio of juvenile felines were spotted hiding in a Moroccan desert shrub by Dr. Gr\u00e9gory Breton, managing director of the French branch of global wild cat conservation organization Panthera, with images<\/a> of the tiny cats immediately going viral.<\/p>\n

Perseverance paid off, though, as Almuntasir personally accounted for 24 of the study\u2019s 36 sand cat observations. Overall, they were logged at 13 locations across the Libyan Sahara, predominantly in the southwest of the country, suggesting the region is a \u201cpotential stronghold\u201d for the species.<\/p>\n

Yet \u201cmajor knowledge gaps\u201d remain, the study stressed, and closing them could be essential to ensuring that sand cats do not become true ghosts in Libya and beyond.<\/p>\n

While the species is currently listed as \u201cleast concern\u201d<\/a> by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) \u2014 meaning it doesn\u2019t qualify for an at-risk category \u2014 researchers have previously pushed<\/a> for the authority to reconsider the assessment, which was made in 2014.<\/p>\n

Sand cats could be more endangered than previously suspected due to \u201ctheir home range, the limited resources and fragile ecosystem,\u201d Breton, who coauthored a study of Moroccan sand cats published in 2023, told<\/a> CNN at the time, adding that there had been cases of the species being captured for the illegal pet trade.<\/p>\n

Hayder echoes Breton\u2019s conservation concerns, particularly around environmental factors. Acutely sensitive to increases in temperature, small carnivores like the sand cat can act as a \u201csentinel\u201d for climate change.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to check if a habitat is in good (condition), you have to study the small carnivores,\u201d said Hayder, who theorizes that climate change could have already contributed to a drop in sand cat populations.<\/p>\n

Observations in Libya supported more of Breton\u2019s fears. During his field work, Almuntasir reported seeing sand cats sold at local markets, often as pets, while Hayder said he had spoken to hunters who killed them for meat.<\/p>\n

For Hayder, it is a painfully familiar tale that spurs him to want to increase awareness and understanding of small carnivores \u2014 from caracal to fennec foxes \u2014 across North Africa.<\/p>\n

The ecologist believes a lack of public knowledge around the various species is fueling human-carnivore conflict, an area of research he has previously explored<\/a> in relation to negative social media perceptions of the Egyptian weasel.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it is like a challenge,\u201d Hayder said. \u201cI feel that I have to change the mentality.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not every day that a YouTube video triggers a major wildlife discovery, yet that\u2019s exactly what Mohammed Almuntasir unknowingly did when he hit upload in 2017. Clocking in at just 18 seconds, the clip showed a fun-sized feline curling up under the shade of a desert shrub in the photographer\u2019s native Libya. Almost a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/amayei.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/2026\/07\/01-59dc3dae-eb5a-48a7-9808-30ac7431a6a6.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[2650,2654,2652,2655,2653,2651,1626,2649],"class_list":["post-1337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news","tag-accidentally","tag-desert","tag-existence","tag-ghosts","tag-libyas","tag-proved","tag-video","tag-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}