If cheetahs lived in the mountains, their hunts might look like this:
That apparently gravity-free cat is a snow leopard, of course, and it isn’t kin to cheetahs.
Tigers are the snow leopard’s closest relative, according to genetics, yet tigers are not particularly acrobatic.
Overall, snow leopards are a mystery, even to Science.
They live in such remote places that wildlife biologists have only been able to study them for the last four decades or so.
Snow leopards have some big-cat features but in many ways they are unique.
Taxonomists put them them in with the big cats only because the alternative would be to take tigers out of that category, which no one is willing to do.
As researchers continue working out the details, let’s look at three warm and furry general facts about snow leopards.
43. Snow leopard anatomy is rather cheetah-like.
A cheetah would break one of those fine legs and probably several ribs in its sleek chest, dropping from ledge to ledge down a cliff like the snow leopard does.
But it might not fall. The cheetah’s extra-long back would keep it springy and fast, just as the snow leopard’s does.
Besides an unusually long back and sturdy legs, snow leopards also have a lengthy tail — proportionately longer even than the cheetah’s — that they use the same way Spotted Speed Racer does, as a counterbalance to help them follow zig-zagging prey.
It’s also someone to talk to when you need a friend. (Image:Abeselom Zerit/Shutterstock)
That tail comes with an added bonus — enough fluffiness to insulate the snow leopard’s paws and body when it rests on cold ground.
Cheetahs and snow leopards have more features in common that aren’t necessarily used by either cat in exactly the same way.
For example, these two species are the only cats whose shin bone is longer than the other hind leg bone (the fibula, behind the shin bone). Because of how leg muscles attach to these bones, anatomists say this gives cheetahs more speed on a flat surface. They aren’t sure exactly how it is helping the snow leopard.
Both cats have deep chests, rounded heads and extra large nasal passages for maximum air intake. Cheetahs need this to catch their breath and to cool down after a chase.
Snow leopards simply use it to breathe — the air is thin where these very active cats live.
44. Snow leopards have round pupils like big cats, but they neither roar nor purr.
It’s hard not to get all anthropomorphic with snow leopards.
That round head and short muzzle give snow leopards a human-like face, and their eyes look like ours, too — typically light green or gray instead of the amber color seen in most wild cats.
Snow leopards even have round pupils like us, not the slit-like opening that makes Fluffy sometimes look like a space alien.
Actually, all cats are from another planet all big cats have round pupils, though we seldom notice it due to their other attention-grabbing qualities.
Does this mean that snow leopards are big cats?
Not necessarily. Cheetahs also have round pupils, as do relatives like the mountain lion and jaguarundi, sitting alongside cheetahs on the puma branch of the cat family tree.
For that matter, so does Grumpy Cat — an unrelated little spotted cat found on central Asia’s cold, high steppes!
Biologists are not sure why these cats, and only these cats, have round pupils. Could it be the open habitat? Something to do with internal eye lenses?
Every proposed solution to this arcane academic conundrum fails on one or more points.
Anyway, before molecular biology arrived, people saw Family Felidae as two groups:
- Roaring cats, i.e., Panthera, the big cats.
- All the rest (many of whom purr).
And then there are snow leopards.
Cheetahs purr. Mountain lions purr. Snow leopards do not purr.
Despite their tiger connection, snow leopards do not roar, either. They yowl during mating season, and make the usual quieter vocalizations like growls and chuffs, but that’s all their larnyx soft tissue and bony structures allow.
Unable to fit these beautiful mountain cats into either the roaring or purring side of Family Felidae, taxonomists filed snow leopards in a separate category under their old Latin name — Uncia — and waited for time to fill in the blanks.
There has been some progress, with DNA studies showing the link to tigers, but so many questions about the cat now known as Panthera uncia are still unanswered!
Nevertheless —
45. Scientists are still making new discoveries about wild snow leopards.
There are an estimated eight thousand snow leopards out there, living in 1.2 million square miles of the most inaccessible land on Earth.
No wonder information about them is sketchy!
Late in the twentieth century, wildlife biologists were able to collect hundreds of snow leopards in zoos across the world. This gave them sufficient information to understand snow leopard basic anatomy, physiology, and genetics.
It also gave us laypeople a wonderful introduction to these beautiful cats!
In the early twentieth century, technology improved to the point where it became possible to set up camera traps in remote places. The resulting snow leopard images were few and far between, but they gave experts some data for studies on these cats in the wild.
A side effect of those stunning images has been an ecotourism boom. People are willing to pay for the chance of seeing a snow leopard in its native setting!
This not only gives boffins more data but also provides an economic incentive for local residents to tolerate the cat instead of persecuting it for the loss of their animal property — sometimes a heavy loss for these subsistence farmers. (To date, there has been no recorded human death from snow leopard attack, and snow leopards are caught and killed fairly easily when they come down to feed on livestock.)
Radio collars were the next step in wild snow leopard research. Unfortunately:
- It’s not easy to find and then safely tranquilize a snow leopard.
The process is hard on animals and people. But data reportedly show that Bhutan’s snow leopard population is up by almost forty petcent.
- Mountainous snow leopard country can block the collar’s radio signals.
Persistence pays off, and the boffins did get some cats collared; one project even tracked these snow leopards by satellite!
But it is difficult.
Footwork is less costly and sometimes yields surprising results.
For instance, researchers thought for a long time that snow leopards prefer steep slopes and will not move across broad valleys.
This was worrisome because it meant that snow leopard populations are small and essentially stranded on separate mountain ranges, which could lead to inbreeding that would make snow leopards very vulnerable to extinction.
“C’mon, the Collar Lords will never find us out here on these rocks!” (Image: SarahLou Photography/Shutterstock)
Then field workers found snow leopards on a variety of big rock formations that rose out of wide plains. The cats must have crossed hundreds of miles of open country to get there — obviously they are less isolated (and more genetically varied) that experts had once thought.
It was good news, and hopefully that trend of positive findings will continue as snow leopard research goes on.
We’re now halfway through the fangly facts! If you enjoyed the series, tips are welcome via the secure Stripe donation link. I won’t be saving your email for marketing or other spam, so here’s a big thank you in advance!
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Flight To Wonder 