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In the stillness of a winter’s night, a snow leopard slunk into the livestock enclosure on Rinchen Lama’s farm. This big cat was out hunting, high in the hills of Dolpa, a Himalayan district in western Nepal. Everyone who lives in Dolpa can tell you about snow leopards they are powerful predators. Those farm animals didn’t stand a chance. Rinchen remembers the scene the following morning: “There was wool everywhere, matted with blood……Continue reading…..
By: Eileen McDougall
Source: BBC Future
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Critics:
Based on the phylogenetic analysis of the DNA sequence sampled across the living Felidae, the snow leopard forms a sister group with the tiger (P. tigris). The genetic divergence time of this group is estimated at 4.62 to 1.82 million years ago. The snow leopard and the tiger probably diverged between 3.7 to 2.7 million years ago. Panthera originates most likely in northern Central Asia.
Panthera blytheae excavated in western Tibet’s Ngari Prefecture has been initially described the oldest known Panthera species and exhibits skull characteristics similar to the snow leopard, though its taxonomic placement has been disputed by other researchers who suggest that the species likely belongs to a different genus. The mitochondrial genomes of the snow leopard, the leopard and the lion (P. leo) are more similar to each other than their nuclear genomes, indicating that their ancestors hybridised at some point in their evolution.
The earliest known definitive record of the modern snow leopard is dated to the Late Pleistocene based on a specimen discovered from the Niuyan Cave of China. A Middle Pleistocene specimen from the Zhoukoudian Peking Man Site which is similar to the modern snow leopard has been referred to as P. aff. uncia. Putative fossils of the snow leopard found in the Pabbi Hills of Pakistan were dated to the Early Pleistocene, but the fossils might instead represent a leopard or belong to the genus Puma.
It has also been suggested that the snow leopard had European paleosubspecies during the Middle Pleistocene. Panthera uncia pyrenaica was described in 2022 based on fossil material found in France that was dated to the early Middle Pleistocene around 0.57 to 0.53 million years ago. Panthera uncia lusitana was described in 2025 based on fossil material discovered from Middle Pleistocene strata in Portugal, and the describers of P. u. lusitana assigned P. u. pyrenaica outside the modern snow leopard as P. pyrenaica due to the lack of similar traits, though it might represent a basal related species.
The snow leopard’s fur is whitish to grey with black spots on the head and neck, with larger rosettes on the back, flanks and bushy tail. Its muzzle is short, its forehead domed, and its nasal cavities are large. The fur is thick with hairs measuring 5 to 12 cm (2.0 to 4.7 in) in length, and its underbelly is whitish. They are stocky, short-legged, and slightly smaller than other cats of the genus Panthera, reaching a shoulder height of 56 cm (22 in), and ranging in head to body size from 75 to 150 cm (30 to 59 in).
Its tail is 80 to 105 cm (31 to 41 in) long.Males average 45 to 55 kg (99 to 121 lb), and females 35 to 40 kg (77 to 88 lb). Occasionally, large males reaching 75 kg (165 lb) have been recorded, and small females under 25 kg (55 lb).Its canine teeth are 28.6 mm (1.13 in) long and are more slender than those of the other Panthera species. The snow leopard shows several adaptations for living in cold, mountainous environments.
Its small rounded ears help to minimize heat loss, and its broad paws effectively distribute the body weight for walking on snow. Fur on the undersides of the paws enhances its grip on steep and unstable surfaces, and helps to minimize heat loss. Its long and flexible tail helps the cat to balance in rocky terrain. The tail is very thick due to fat storage, and is covered in a thick layer of fur, which allows the cat to use it like a blanket to protect its face when asleep.
The snow leopard differs from the other Panthera species by a shorter muzzle, an elevated forehead, a vertical chin and a less developed posterior process of the lower jaw. Despite its partly ossified hyoid bone, a snow leopard cannot roar, as its 9 mm (0.35 in) short vocal folds provide little resistance to airflow. Its nasal openings are large in relation to the length of its skull and width of its palate; thanks to their size the volume of air inhaled with each breath is optimised, and the cold dry air becomes warmer.
It is not especially adapted to high-altitude hypoxia.The snow leopard is distributed from the west of Lake Baikal through southern Siberia, in the Kunlun Mountains, Altai Mountains, Sayan and Tannu-Ola Mountains, in the Tian Shan, through Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to the Hindu Kush in eastern Afghanistan, Karakoram in northern Pakistan, in the Pamir Mountains, the Tibetan Plateau and in the high elevations of the Himalayas in India, Nepal and Bhutan.
n Mongolia, they inhabit the Mongolian and Gobi Altai Mountains and the Khangai Mountains. In Tibet, they occur up to the Altyn-Tagh in the north. They inhabit alpine and subalpine zones at elevations of 3,000 to 4,500 m (9,800 to 14,800 ft), but also lives at lower elevations in the northern part of their range. Potential snow leopard habitat in the Indian Himalayas is estimated at less than 90,000 km2 (35,000 sq mi) in Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, of which about 34,000 km2 (13,000 sq mi) is considered good habitat, and 14.4% is protected.
In the beginning of the 1990s, the Indian snow leopard population was estimated at 200–600 individuals living across about 25 protected areas. The Snow Leopard Population Assessment in India (SPAI) Programme counted the number of snow leopards between 2019 and 2023 and found their number to be 718, with 477 in Ladakh, 124 in Uttarakhand, 51 in Himachal Pradesh, 36 in Arunachal Pradesh, 21 in Sikkim, and nine in Jammu and Kashmir.
In summer, the snow leopard usually lives above the tree line on alpine meadows and in rocky regions at elevations of 2,700 to 6,000 m (8,900 to 19,700 ft). In winter, they descend to elevations around 1,200 to 2,000 m (3,900 to 6,600 ft). They prefer rocky, broken terrain, and can move in 85 cm (33 in) deep snow, but prefers to use existing trails made by other animals. Snow leopards were recorded by camera traps at 16 locations in northeastern Afghanistan’s isolated Wakhan Corridor.
The snow leopard’s vocalizations include meowing, grunting, prusten and moaning. They can purr when exhaling. It is solitary and mostly active at dawn till early morning, and again in afternoons and early evenings. They mostly rest near cliffs and ridges that provide vantage points and shade. In Nepal’s Shey Phoksundo National Park, the home ranges of five adult radio-collared snow leopards largely overlapped, though they rarely met.
Their individual home ranges ranged from 12 to 39 km2 (4.6 to 15.1 sq mi). Males moved between 0.5 and 5.45 km (0.31 and 3.39 mi) per day, and females between 0.2 and 2.25 km (0.12 and 1.40 mi), measured in straight lines between survey points. Since they often zigzagged in the precipitous terrain, they actually moved up to 7 km (4.3 mi) in a single night.Up to 10 individuals inhabit an area of 100 km2 (39 sq mi); in habitats with sparse prey, an area of 1,000 km2 (390 sq mi) usually supports only five individuals.
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