Males weigh between 90-115 lbs, with females weighing between 75-90lbs. Snow leopards molt twice a year with the summer coat being not quite as dense as the winter one. They use their tails like a coat in the winter, wrapping it around themselves when lying or sitting for added warmth. Further adaptations for high altitude life include an enlarged nasal cavity, shortened limbs, well developed chest muscles, long hair with a dense, wooly undercoat, and a tail over 3 feet long. It’s unique color makes an ideal camouflage in its mountain environment of bare rocks and snow. Size and Appearance: The snow leopard is unique among the felids for the smokey-gray coloring of its coat patterned with dark gray rosettes and spots, and because of that it became nearly extinct. Sub-Species: A single species – There has been some attempt to recognize different sub-species of snow leopard, but at this time all attempts have been rejected. At one time here in the US, a coat from a snow leopard sold for up to $50,000.00. Unfortunately, there is still a demand for fur coats from snow leopard skins in some countries, but luckily that has greatly diminished. There is also a demand now for snow leopard bones in traditional Chinese medicine as a substitute for tiger bones. Its greatest threats are the hunting of its main prey species in the mountains, and the poisoning of other of its prey species, leaving the snow leopard with out a means of sustaining itself. It makes a happy sound similar to the tiger’s chuffing. Misc.: This species, like the clouded leopard, is one of those that is somewhere between the small cats and the great cats in that it can’t purr like the small cats and it can’t roar like the true great cats.

Snow leopard camouflage