Wildlife

In the Tagant as well as in Adrar, wildlife is abundant though often nocturnal.

• Carnivores: cheetahs, striped hyenas, jackals (whose yelping is often heard during the night), foxes, fennecs, wildcats (Felis sylvestris).
• Rodents: hares, squirrels, goundis, jerboas and gerbils. And their neighbors the hyraxes.
• Various animals: porcupines (Hystrix cristata), hedgehogs, baboons (papio cynocephalus) and patas monkeys (Erythrocebus patas)
• Gazelles (Gazella dorcas) are rare in the various regions of the Tagant as they have been decimated by hunting. One occasionally notices their tracks (dune region between wadi El Khatt and the mountain massifs of Haroûch and Tamassoumit). More present in the northeast of Adrar, they remain nonetheless extremely difficult to observe.
• The addax (Addax nasomaculatus), which has been a victim of major droughts and war in Western Sahara (Polisario Front), is gradually beginning to repopulate the silent vastness of Majabat Al Koubra, at the far east of Adrar.
• Reptiles: various snakes (Moïla and Schokari), vipers (Vipera cerastes, sand viper and Cerastes cerastes, horned viper, Echis leucogaster, minute snake), various lizards including many dhobs (Uromastix) and agamas.
• Scorpions are frequent, especially during warm periods.
• Birds are particularly abundant: ravens, vultures, owls, doves, pigeons, as well as a large number of smaller birds, often with very colorful plumage. In autumn and spring, passages of migratory birds can be very significant (Storks, various doves, multitudes of raptors as well as countless songbirds…).

Certain gueltas are home to fish such as catfish. A few, larger ones, such as the one at Matmata, in the southwest of the Tagant, still hide a few crocodiles.

Sahelian and Saharan Flora

Mauritanian flora is abundant: umm rokba (Panicum turgidum), sbot (Aristida pungens), girgir (Schouwia purpurea), initi or cram-cram (Cenchrus biflorus) is a grass with small spikes that prick terribly and which we encounter essentially in the Tagant.

Tadaresa (Tribulus), tamachal, akchit, talebat, tigingilit (plant with small red flowers), colocynths, as well as another grass, tinesmert (Tragus racemosus), whose spikelets equipped with hooked spines cling insistently to shoelaces, to the bottom of trousers and to socks!

Trees are numerous, particularly in the valleys: teïchot (Balanites aegyptiaca) with powerful thorns, atil (Maerua crassifolia), Ifernâne (Euphorbia balsamifera) or Hell's Fig, with abundant sap, sder (Ziziphus lotus and mauritania), jujubes, turjât (Calotropis procera) or Apple of Sodom, not forgetting of course, various acacias including talha (Acacia raddiana), tamat (Acacia seyal) and amoûr (Acacia arabica). One shrub has particularly fragrant flowers, it is eisine (Boscia senegalensis).