All UAE records, apart from several from Dubai, are from the waters off western Abu Dhabi, with concentrations in the Marawah Island and Sila'a areas (Aspinall and Baldwin 1999). Collins et al. (2005) considered there to be a more or less contiguous distribution along the western and southern margins of the Arabian Gulf. Globally, the species occurs in a narrow strip of shallow (usually (<) 50 m deep) coastal marine waters, as well as some river mouths and estuaries, around the northern rim of the Indian and western Pacific Oceans eastwards to Indonesia and north to central Chinese waters (Wang and Reeves 2017).

In UAE waters, this species occurs in both the Arabian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. The Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphin (as well as the Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphin) is the species most likely to be seen close to shore in Abu Dhabi and Dubai (Baldwin 2005). Globally, this species has a discontinuous distribution in the warm temperate to tropical Indo-Pacific, from South Africa in the west, as far east as the Solomon Islands and the southern half of Japan and southeast Australia (Hammond et al. 2012c).

The White-tailed Mongoose occurs in the north of the UAE mainly in the mountains but also known from some sites in the plains (Jongbloed et al. 2001, Aspinall et al. 2005, Fernandes 2011). It has been recorded from Wadi Shawkah and other sites in Ras Al Khaimah; Wadi Siji in Fujairah; it was seen in Wadi Wurayah in the late 1990s (J. Budd pers. comm. 2018), but has not been recorded there in recent camera trap surveys; and Wadi Helo and Wadi Hefiyah in Sharjah. Outside the mountains, it has been recorded at Al Ain, Al Dhaid (where two were caught in 2015) and Masafi. It was listed as Extinct in the Wild in Abu Dhabi (Drew and Tourenq 2005). The species is widespread in sub-Saharan Africa from Senegal and Gambia to the Horn of Africa, and then southwards to South Africa (Do Linh San 2015). In the Arabian Peninsula, it occurs in Oman. Yemen and Saudi Arabia, in addition to UAE (Mallon and Budd 2011). The species occurs in the Hajar Mountains in Oman (Harrison and Bates 1991).

This species is rarely recorded in UAE waters. It has occasionally been recorded off the East Coast (Baldwin 1995). An examination of whales reported in the Gulf since 1883 confirmed eight records of Humpback Whales, including Holocene remains of one specimen from Abu Dhabi, but none of the other seven records was from UAE (Dakteh et al. 2017). Four of the records were from Iran. Two strandings and one sighting of a mother-calf pair also have been recorded for the Gulf of Oman coast of Iran (Braulik et al. 2010, Owfi et al. 2015). A number of sightings have also been recently reported off the coast of Pakistan (Moazzam and Nawaz 2017). The last known sighting on the east coast was in 1979 at Khor Fakkan though this species is likely to travel past this shoreline from time to time. On 9 October 2017, a number of sightings and video recording of a mother Humpback and calf off the coast of Dubai were reported to the UAE Dolphin Project (<a href=""http://www.uaedolphinproject.org"">www.uaedolphinproject.org</a>), the first recent record of live Humpback Whales in the Gulf. These sightings support the hypothesis (Dakteh et al. 2017) that the Gulf may be part of the natural home range of the Arabian Sea Humpback subpopulation and reconfirm the importance of regional collaboration on conservation efforts. It is also one of the very few occasions that a mother and a calf of this species have been observed in the region in the past 20 years. The Arabian Sea Humpback Whale (ASHW) subpopulation is the only one known in the region. There are a number of records for the northwest Gulf of Oman near the entrance of the Strait of Hormuz (Baldwin et al. 1999, Minton et al. 2011, Pomilla et al. 2014) and it is a reasonable assumption that a this is a single stock with continuous distribution into the Gulf (Dakteh et al. 2017). Whaling data and recent scientific research confirm that the ASHW subpopulation is small and isolated (Minton et al. 2011). The known distribution includes the waters of the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Yemen, Iran, Pakistan and India with potential for occurrence in other states of the North Indian Ocean region, but so far almost all data comes from Oman (Mikhalev 2000, Baldwin 2000, Minton et al. 2011). Research completed over the past two decades in Oman provides compelling evidence that the ASHW population is the world's most isolated and genetically distinct population of humpback whales, separated from conspecifics for an estimated 70,000 years (Pomilla et al. 2014). It is also the smallest and most endangered subpopulation of this species. The available scientific data clearly indicate that ASHWs remain within the Northern Indian Ocean year-round and are isolated from Southern Indian Ocean populations (Minton et al. 2011, Pomilla et al. 2014). However, their movements within the Arabian Sea remain poorly understood, due to a lack of dedicated research effort in any range state other than Oman. Humpback Whales in all other populations migrate between distinct feeding and breeding grounds that are typically separated by thousands of kilometres, and it is reasonable to assume that ASHWs engage in at least some level of transboundary movement between the waters of the range states where they have been documented to occur. This is supported by a recent record in 2017 of a female whale recorded with satellite telemetry crossing from Oman to India, and back. The tracked whale, after spending a few weeks engaged in small-scale movements in the Gulf of Masirah (Oman), then suddenly headed across the Arabian Sea to a location just off the coast of Goa, India reaching later the southernmost tip of India, before returning to Oman. There are two records of this species northwest of the UAE in the Arabian Gulf. It is still reported in the Arabian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, but nearshore development and fishing pressure may have reduced its former range here (Baldwin 2005) and it is more often recorded in the Arabian Sea though even here it is rare. Globally, the Humpback Whale is found in all the major ocean basins. All subpopulations except the one in the Arabian Sea migrate between mating and calving grounds in tropical waters, usually near continental coastlines or island groups, and productive colder waters in temperate and high latitudes (Reilly et al. 2008b).

There are a few confirmed records and some additional anecdotal reports of this species in the UAE. Carcasses were obtained from south of Wutayd in 1987 and Ghayathi in western Abu Dhabi Emirate (Cunningham 2002). A dead but largely intact specimen was photographed and collected near a Little Owl perch on a calcrete terrace in the western desert of Abu Dhabi, 3 km W of the track to Mukhayriz prison, in April 1997 (G. Feulner, pers. comm. 2018). The specimen was deposited with M. Jongbloed, then Director of Sharjah Desert Park, but was subsequently misplaced. The first live sighting was in 2001 about 35 km northwest of Al Ain, when an animal was found near a den with tracks and prey remains (Cunningham 2002). One individual was found for sale in a pet shop in 2002, having been caught south of Al Ain; one was seen in the Sweihan area in autumn 2004 and more recently in 2017, and a further individual was observed in the Baynoonah area of western Abu Dhabi in 2005 (Drew and Tourenq 2005). Between 1995 and 2005 there were only four confirmed records despite intensive surveys in areas of suitable habitat (Drew and Tourenq 2005). All records and reports to date were summarised in Banfield et al. (2014). Presence in Baynoonah was confirmed in 2015 when 46 photographs of Sand Cat were obtained during a camera trap survey (Ahmed et al. 2016), and surveys in protected areas of Abu Dhabi in 2017-2018 have recorded Sand Cat at 12 new localities, in addition to Baynoonah. These new records may indicate that the species is more widely distributed than previously suspected. There are no recent records from the Dubai or Sharjah deserts. It is assumed that formerly it was sparsely and patchily distributed across the UAE, except for the mountains. Globally, the Sand Cat has an extensive but very patchy distribution in North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Pakistan and Central Asia (Sliwa et al. 2016). In the Arabian Peninsula records are widely but sparsely distributed in Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia north to Iraq, Jordan and Syria (Banfield et al. 2014).