Kenneth J. Almonte

Turkey’s high-elevation mammal fauna includes far more than wild goats, chamois, bears, and wolves. Its most mountain-dependent members include endemic ground squirrels and dormice, several rock-dwelling snow voles, a subterranean mole known from the Hakkari highlands, and a long-eared bat strongly associated with mountain environments. A reliable account must separate these alpine, subalpine, cliff, scree, […]

Turkey’s marine mammal fauna includes a recurring group of dolphins and harbour porpoises in the Black Sea, Marmara, Aegean and eastern Mediterranean, together with the Mediterranean monk seal along suitable Aegean and Mediterranean coasts. The most consistently documented focal species are the common bottlenose dolphin, short-beaked common dolphin, striped dolphin, Risso’s dolphin, harbour porpoise and

Türkiye’s 2025 national mammal checklist records 43 native bat species in six families. The list spans fruit bats, horseshoe bats, tomb bats, free-tailed bats, long-fingered bats, and 33 vesper bats, but it should be treated as a dated, source-based inventory rather than a permanently fixed total because several Turkish bat groups are still being revised

Turkey’s current source-based list contains nine living wild terrestrial ungulate species: three deer, two gazelles, one wild goat, one wild sheep, one chamois, and the wild boar. All belong to Artiodactyla, but they occupy sharply different settings, ranging from Mediterranean woodland and northern forests to Central Anatolian steppe, southeastern semi-desert, and the rocky high mountains

Turkey’s current national mammal checklist supports seven native species within the four groups named in this title: gray wolf, brown bear, Eurasian lynx, leopard, caracal, jungle cat, and European wildcat. They belong to three families and differ sharply in body size, habitat use, detectability, and the amount of field evidence available from Turkey. The same

Türkiye supports mammal communities across Balkan forests, Anatolian steppe, the Taurus and eastern mountain systems, dry southeastern plains, rivers, caves, islands and four surrounding seas. A 2025 national checklist recognizes 177 wild species—165 terrestrial and 12 marine—but this figure combines native residents, four taxa coded alien or invasive, regular marine species and marine visitors. The