Snow Leopard Pictures

The snow leopard pictures below should give you a good introduction to the life of this endangered leopard, otherwise known as ounce:

The snow leopard lives in high-altitude regions. It has an oversized body since it needs large lungs to breathe the thin mountain air.

Their tail measures almost as long as their body! In fact, they sometimes use their tail to cover their eyes. The long tail helps them keep their balance in the rocky-mountain areas they inhabit.

ABOVE. The thick, muscular legs and huge paws help them keep balance on slippery slopes when catching prey.

ABOVE. The broken and rosette style spots can make them hard to spot and create a very effective camouflage in their natural environment.

Around four thousand snow leopards live in the wild, around one thousand of those in Mongolia. A good number also live in captivity where they can live as long as twenty years.

They rarely hangout together and usually hunt alone. But during the breeding season (from January to March) you can sometimes see a female and male working and hunting together.

They are non-aggressive—unless you happen to be an Ibex! Although they have well-defined territories, they rarely fight one other. They can kill an animal up to three times their size but do not attack humans.

Here’s a snow leopard cub. Kind of like a beefed-up kitten! An ounce usually gives birth to litters of two or three.

They are the Kings of the Mountains—the top predator in their domain.

For more information, check out my Mongolian snow leopard page.

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