The first sand cat known to science was discovered in the Algerian Sahara and described in 1858. To date, it has been recorded in several disjunct locations in Morocco, Algeria, Niger, Chad and Egypt. In Central Asia, it was recorded for the first time in the mid 1920s in the Karakum Desert. The large gap between these two regions of its global range was partially closed in 1948, when a sand cat skin was found in an oasis of the Rub' al Khali in Oman. It is discontinuously distributed in the deserts of the Arabian peninsula and the Middle East. In the early 1970s, sand cats were caught in southwestern Pakistan and exported to zoos worldwide. Due to its wide distribution, it is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.