Arabian oryx towards Saudi Arabia, and by 1914, only a few survived outside that country. A few were reported in Jordan into the 1930s, but by the mid-1930s, the only remaining populations were in the Nafud Desert in northwestern Saudi Arabia and the Rub' al Khali in the south. In the 1930s, Arabian princes and oil company clerks started hunting Arabian oryx with automobiles and rifles. Hunts grew in size, and some were reported to employ as many as 300 vehicles. By the middle of the 20th century, the northern population was effectively extinct. The last Arabian oryx in the wild prior
Geography of Saudi Arabia Stretching more than 125 kilometers south from the An Nafud in a narrow arc is the ad-Dahna desert, a narrow band of sand mountains also called the river of sand. Like the An Nafud, its sand tends to be reddish, particularly in the north, where it shares with the An Nafud the longitudinal structure of sand dunes. The Ad Dahna also furnishes the Bedouin with winter and spring pasture, although water is scarcer than in the An Nafud. The southern portion of the Ad Dahna curves westward following the arc of the Jabal Tuwayq. At its southern end, it merges