Description of animals

                                  Snow leopard

     Snow leopard(Panthera uncia), also known as the ounce, is a large cat native to the mountain ranges of Central and South Asia. It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red list because the global population is estimated to number less than 10,000 mature individuals and is expected to decline about 10% by 2040. It is threatened by Poaching and habitat destruction following infrastructural developments. It inhabits alpine and subalpine zones  at elevations from 3,000 to 4,500 m (9,800 to 14,800 ft), ranging from eastern Afghanistan to Mongolia and western China. In the northern range countries, it also occurs at lower elevations.

  Taxonomically the snow leopard was long classified in the monotypic genus Uncia.
 Since phylogeneticstudies revealed the relationships among pantheraspecies, it is considered a member of this genus.Two subspecies were described based on morphological differences, but genetic differences between the two have not been confirmed. It is therefore regarded a monotypic species.

Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Chordata
Class:Mammalia
Order:Carnivora
Suborder:Feliformia
Family:Felidae
Subfamily:Pantherinae
Genus:Panthera
Species:P. Uncia

Fun Fact

  Snow leopard the only big cats that call the cold deserts of Asia home. These deserts are also known as the third pole because they contain ice fields with the largest reserves of freshwater outside the northern and southern polar regions.

They are often called the “ghosts of the mountain” because they are so rarely seen and spend most of their lives in solitude.

The fur on their stomachs is nearly five inches thick to help them survive in cold, harsh mountain climates.

Believe it or not, snow leopards can’t roar. Instead, they growl, yowl, mew and prusten (also called chuffing, a non-threatening vocalization made by blowing air through their nose).

A WWF study recorded snow leopards living at the highest altitude ever documented for big cats — 5,859 metres above sea level — about the same height as Canada’s highest mountain.