 Some eggshell fragments were collected by St. John Philby from Mahadir Summan, Arabia, around 1931.Following analyses of mtDNA control region haplotypes that confirmed the close relationship of the Arabian and the North African subspecies, a reintroduction project using "S. c. camelus" was set up in Saudi Arabia.Today, the North African ostrich has been re-introduced from captivity to the open areas of the Negev in Israel where the Arabian ostrich lived before.