Mammals of the WorldSnow Leopard
Panthera uncia
- Order
- Carnivora
- Family
- Felidae
- Genus
- Panthera
- IUCN status
- VU
- Distribution
- Afghanistan|Bhutan|China|India|Kazakhstan|Kyrgyzstan|Mongolia|Nepal|Pakistan|Russia|Tajikistan|Uzbekistan
- Realm
- Palearctic
Other names: Ounce
About this species
- Size
- Head and body 75–150cm; tail 80–105cm; shoulder up to 56cm
- Habitat
- Rocky, broken alpine and subalpine terrain, mostly 3,000–4,500m; lower in winter
- Range
- Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh
The snow leopard is a stocky, short-legged cat, slightly smaller than the other big cats, with a short muzzle and domed forehead. Its thick whitish-grey fur is marked with black spots on the head and neck and large open rosettes on the back, flanks and very long, bushy tail. Everything about it suits cold mountains: small rounded ears lose little heat, broad furred paws spread its weight on snow and grip loose rock, and the thick tail helps with balance and is wrapped round the body for warmth. Unlike the lion, tiger and leopard it cannot roar (Wikipedia, general species account).
Across its range the snow leopard is solitary and most active around dawn and again from afternoon into early evening, resting near cliffs and ridges that give it a view. In summer it lives above the tree line on alpine meadows and rocky slopes, moving lower in winter, and it prefers to travel along existing animal trails through deep snow. Home ranges vary hugely: from a few tens of square kilometres in Nepal to well over a hundred in the Gobi, with neighbours' ranges often overlapping though the cats rarely meet (Wikipedia, general species account).
India's first national count, the Snow Leopard Population Assessment in India, ran from 2019 to 2023 over more than 70% of the potential habitat in the trans-Himalaya, first mapping occupancy and then estimating numbers with camera traps. It recorded 718 snow leopards: 477 in Ladakh, 124 in Uttarakhand, 51 in Himachal Pradesh, 36 in Arunachal Pradesh, 21 in Sikkim and 9 in Jammu and Kashmir (MoEFCC and WII 2024, as summarised by Drishti IAS). Ladakh alone holds about two-thirds of the total.
Description: Wildlife of India guide, Wildlife of Everywhere (wildlifeofeverywhere.com); general species information paraphrased from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)