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Snow Leopard

Panthera uncia · medium

A snow leopard is built almost entirely for cold, height and ambush. Its tail is nearly as long as its body — used as a counterweight on ledges, and wrapped around itself like a scarf when resting. Its paws are broad and fur-covered, working as snowshoes. Its nasal cavity is enlarged to warm thin, freezing air before it reaches the lungs. The coat is so dense that the animal appears considerably heavier than it is.

It hunts blue sheep, ibex and marmots across the mountains of Central and South Asia, ranging over twelve countries from the Himalaya to the Altai. Individual home ranges can cover hundreds of square kilometres of near-vertical terrain, which is a large part of why the species remained so poorly documented for so long: it is thinly spread, superbly camouflaged, and lives where people rarely go.

Unlike the other big cats it cannot roar. The larynx lacks the necessary structure, so it chuffs, growls and produces a wailing call instead.

Its main pressures now are retaliatory killing after livestock losses, depletion of its wild prey, and mining and infrastructure pushing into high valleys. Roughly half the remaining population is thought to be in China.

Where it lives

Worml lists the snow leopard as native to 12 countries — Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Its habitat is alpine and subalpine mountain steppe above the treeline.

Ranges here are reduced to whole countries for playability and exclude introduced populations — see about the data for what that simplification leaves out.

In the game

Snow Leopard is rated medium. To solve the round you need to find any 6 of its 12 listed countries. How scoring works →

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