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Sardinia is home to a wide variety of rare or uncommon animals, such as several species of mammals, many of them belonging to an own subspecies: the Mediterranean Monk Seal, the Sarcidano horse, the Giara horse, the Albino Donkey, the Sardinian Wild Cat (Felis lybica sarda), the Mouflon, the Sardinian Long-eared Bat, the Sardinian Deer, the Fallow Deer, the Sardinian fox (Vulpes vulpes ichnusae), the Sardinian Hare (Lepus capensis mediterraneus), the wild boar (Sus scrofa meridionalis), the Edible dormouse and the European pine marten.
Rare amphibias, found only on the island, are the Sardinian brook salamander, the Brown Cave Salamander, the Imperial Cave Salamander, the Monte Albo Cave Salamander, the Supramonte Cave Salamander and the Sarrabus Cave Salamander (Speleomantes sarrabusensis); the Sardinian Tree Frog instead is found also in Corsica and in Tuscan Archipelago. Among the reptiles worthy of note is the Bedriaga's Rock Lizard, the Tyrrhenian Wall Lizard and the Fitzinger's Algyroides, endemic species of Sardinia and Corsica. The island is inhabited by terrestrial tortoises and sea turtles like the Hermann's tortoise, the Spur-thighed tortoise, the Marginated tortoise (Testudo marginata sarda), the Nabeul tortoise, the Loggerhead sea turtle and the Green sea turtle.
Sardinia has four endemic subspecies of birds found nowhere else in the world: its Great Spotted Woodpecker (ssp harterti), Great Tit (ssp ecki), Common Chaffinch (ssp sarda), and Eurasian Jay (ssp ichnusae). It also shares a further 10 endemic subspecies of bird with Corsica. In some cases Sardinia is a delimited part of the species range. For example, the subspecies of Hooded Crow, Corvus cornix ssp cornix occurs in Sardinia and Corsica, but no further south.
Birds of prey found are the Griffon Vulture, the Common Buzzard, the Golden Eagle, the Long-eared Owl, the Western Marsh Harrier, the Peregrine Falcon, the European Honey Buzzard, the Sardinian Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis arrigonii), the Bonelli's Eagle and the Eleonora's Falcon, whose name comes from Eleonor of Arborea, national heroine of Sardinia, expert in falconry. The hundreds of lagoons and coastal lakes that dot the island are home for many species of wading birds, such as the Greater Flamingo.
Conversely, Sardinia lacks many common species such as the viper, the wolf, the bear and the marmot, which are found on the European continent.
The island has also long been used for grazing flocks of indigenous Sardinian sheep. The Sardinian Anglo-Arab is a horse breed that was established in Sardinia, where it has been selectively bred for more than one hundred years.
Three different breeds of dogs are peculiar to Sardinia: the Pastore Fonnese, the Dogo Sardo and the Levriero Sardo.
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