Snow Leopard

EPerhaps the most beautiful of all big cats, the Snow Leopard is an amazing animal. Living at altitudes higher than those of most predators, the Snow Leopard creates a niche for itself in some of the most difficult terrains and hostile climates in the world.

Panthera Uncia, the Snow Leopard, is frequently grouped in small cats owing to its inability to roar, even as it is gifted a predator as any other felid. The cat is characterized by its nearly meter long tail that helps protect its face during extreme cold and enables it to balance itself while encountering adverse topography. The weight ranges from 80-130 lbs. Males are larger with a squarer face. The feet are bigger and furrier for its size relative to other cats, helping the leopard tread over snow. The coat is very attractive with thick fur and beautiful rosettes characteristic of leopards. In winter the coat gets more white than yellow.

Owing to inhospitable terrain and difficult habitats, Snow Leopards have evolved to be specialized predators and opportunistic hunters. They take a variety of prey, including animals much bigger than themselves.

Their leaping ability (45 feet) surpasses even that of the cougar enabling the marvelous cat to surprise its prey and encounter the hilly ranges of its territory. Distributed over a large mountainous terrain in South and Central Asia, Snow Leopards hunt a number of animals including boars, ibexes and rodents.

Conservation efforts over the past few decades have helped bring Snow Leopard population out of imminent threat of extinction. Numerous national parks and protection programs have sprouted in local countries with aim at boosting the numbers in wild, complemented by successful breeding in captivity. Numbers in the wild, though, hover around five to six thousand - the conservation status still being 'endangered'.

 The author is a blogger about <a target="_new" href="http://ailurophiles.blogspot.com">cats</a> and an expert on <a target="_new" href="http://ailurophiles.blogspot.com/2007/06/snow-leopard.html">snow leopard</a>.