Put your senses to the test at the Claws and Paws Pathway! Follow your nose to the binturongs, who smell like buttered popcorn, and keep your eyes peeled for petite Pallas’s cats hiding in plain sight. Get the scoop on the Zoo’s newest residents from curator Craig Saffoe.
In the wild, Pallas’ cats’ range spans from Iraq and Afghanistan to Nepal and Mongolia.
https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/pallas-cat
Pallas’ cats live in dry, rocky areas throughout Central Asia. They rely on camouflage and their low-slung bodies to hunt and to hide from predators.
Pallas’s cats are found in Turkmenistan, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Bhutan, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan
https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/sand-cat
Sand cats are a small, solitary cat native to deserts in Africa and Asia. Superbly adapted to life in the desert, they can live without water, run on shifting sand and detect prey underground.
throughout the Arabian peninsula; and in parts of central Asia including Turkmenistan, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan
https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/cheetah
Built for speed, the cheetah can accelerate from zero to 45 in just 2.5 seconds and reach top speeds of 60 to 70 mph, making it the fastest land mammal! The cheetah’s spotted coat helps it camouflage among the dry grasses of the African savanna where it lives.
north to the northern shores of the Caspian and Aral Seas, and west through Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan
