Dhofar, October 2026

Prelude: August weekend

We had a three day weekend soon after arriving back in Oman so I couldn’t resist jumping on a plane down to Dhofar. The Khareef or monsoon season is without doubt the best time to find Arabian cobras (Naja arabica) but it comes with some significant downsides. The main one being the huge numbers of tourist crowds from all over Arabia. Over the two and a half days I only came across a dead on road cobra but then on my final evening I was rewarded for my efforts. I headed inland to a much drier wadi and soon after I left the car I stumbled across a large Arabian cobra foraging among the boulders next to a dry stream bed. It was a beautiful individual with black, yellow and reddish colours along the body. Annoyingly, a farmer spotted us with the cobra and began throwing rocks and wanted to kill the snake, so we had to take it further into the valley to release it away from the unhappy man. Nonetheless, I was pleased to finally see this species alive after several failed attempts.

A nice prelude to my October visit!

5 days in October

With a week off this time we drove to Dhofar from Muscat which takes just over 10 hours or so. Like previous visits we concentrated on the wilder areas west of Salalah up until the border with Yemen. Motivated by recent sightings of Arabian leopards (Panthera pardus nimr) we decided to focus our attention on areas quite close to Yemen, while of course still keeping an eye out for reptiles, birds and other mammals.

After checking into our hotel we immediately set out to the same dry wadi where we saw the cobra in August. This time it was entirely empty of people. Almost straight away I found a tiny juvenile Arabian cat snake (Telescopus dhara) which was soon followed by two Khosatzkii’s saw-scaled vipers (Echis khosatzkii). A Desert owl (Strix hadorami) was calling nearby but I was a little tired after a full day of driving so we decided not to pursue it. A nearby cistern contained huge numbers of Dhofar toads (Firouzophyrynus dhufarensis).

For the next few days we concentrated our efforts heavily on the areas closer to Yemen which involved very long drives, dodging camels and cows on the roads in the darkness to and from our hotel. During the daytime we saw good numbers of Arabian chameleons (Chamaeleo arabicus) throughout this area, usually crossing the roads in the middle of the day or sleeping in spiky bushes and trees at night. Like previous visits, the Anderson’s rock agamas (Acanthocerus adramitanus) were not particularly abundant and I only managed a few photos of this species.

On our first night in the area we found a subadult and adult Puff adder (Bitis arietans) crossing the roads while we were spotlighting for leopards from the car. The next evening while searching a wadi with plenty of water we also found a juvenile puff adder moving among some rocks. Again, while spotlighting we saw another large Arabian cobra climbing a boulder, it was too high for me to reach for photos and soon after we had a look at the snake it disappeared deep into the rock crevices. Another local Elapid, the Anderson’s burrowing asp (Atractaspis andersonii) was seen twice, one adult foraging in a similar way to the cobra and then a small juvenile that was being harassed by a cat at the roadside. A couple of Wadi racers (Platyceps rhodorachis) and a Schokari sand racer (Psammophis schokari) rounded off the snake observations for these few days.

While we didn’t see any Arabian leopard we were treated to closeup views of several White-tailed mongoose (Ichneumia albicauda), Rock hyrax (Procavia capensis) and many Genets (Genetta genetta). Unusually for Dhofar, we didn’t see any Arabian wolf or even foxes in this area, perhaps with leopards around other carnivores are less tolerated by the big Felids.

The final night we went back to the drier wadi where we found the saw-scaled vipers on our first night. This time we found a beautiful Khosatzkii’s saw-scaled viper with very contrasting colouration, and despite some effort, we couldn’t get clear views of a calling Desert owl.