East coast of Oman, short trip report

For the half-term holiday I decided to spend a few days on the sandy east coast of Oman, around 5 hour drives away from my home near Muscat. I had not visited this area before, but I knew I would have the chance to observe a number of desert-dwelling species that cannot be found within the environs of the capital or, in some cases, anywhere north of the Hajar mountains.

I spent 3 nights metres from the sea shore with sandy deserts being the dominant habitat, along with some flat, stony desert areas further south known as ‘sabkah’. Although it is still winter here, the temperatures were still quite warm and nights never got below 20c. Three nights and two days were not enough time to explore this relatively remote area fully, and I will definitely be back, hopefully during a more productive season.

Daytime observations were limited to a couple of lizard species. The most abundant species were the Arnold’s semaphore gecko (Pristurus minimus) and the Schmidt’s fringe-toed lizard (Acanthodactylus schmidti). Occasionally the impressive Carter’s semaphore gecko (Pristurus carteri) was also seen during the daytime, usually perched like a statue on harder surfaces close to the sea shore. One morning I was unfortunate to come across a recently killed Desert monitor (Varanus griseus), the only example of this species that I saw. The cheeky Arabian toad-headed agama (Phrynocephalus arabicus) twice appeared on a road at midday, but vanished like a ghost each time I stopped the car to attempt to take photos. Another morning, while seeing a sad scene of dozens of dead sea turtles (green & loggerhead) on a beach, I uncovered an Ocellated skink (Chalcides ocellatus) beneath a piece of plastic. At night, good numbers of Dune sand geckos (Stenodactylus doriae) appeared and were the only common nocturnal reptile I could see at this time of year. By comparison, only one Sharqiyah sand gecko (Trigonodactylus sharqiyahensis) was seen.

As for snakes, I found three Crowned leaf-nosed snakes (Lytorhynchus diadema), a species I had not seen elsewhere in Oman, but clearly pretty common in this area. I also found two Arabian sand boas (Eryx jayakari), and after a considerable solo effort, I stumbled across a large Arabian horned viper (Cerastes gasperettii) sitting half concealed in the sand in a typical ambush position. Earlier that day I had found the imprint of a viper in the sand that was less than 100 metres from where I found the viper at night. Maybe it was the same individual? I think so, as I didn’t see any of their typical tracks anywhere in the sand during my time in the area which was an indication that there wasn’t too much activity at this early time of the year.