In third grade we had been studying endangered species. My animal is the snow leopard. The snow leopard lives in cold areas which you might guess from the name.The snow leopard has rosettes not spots. Rosettes are rings and spots are just solid black. In the winter the snow leopard is white but in the the summer they are yellow.

Their habitat is in the Himalayas from Russia to India but none in Mongolia. The mountains they live in have heights of 59,00 -18,000 ft. That’s pretty high if you ask me.

They’re carnivores so they eat meat like mountain goats, deer, pikas, and other livestock they reproduce once a year with 2-3 cubs a group of snow leopards is called a litter.

One of the adaptations is that they have strong lungs because they’re isn’t a lot of oxygen in their dens and they have thick paws to help them walk on the snow to keep their feet from sinking in the snow.

A reason they are vulnerable is that climate change is melting their snow and deforestation. Deforestation is when trees get cut down and used for other things we don’t need like paper and desks. Another one is poaching. Poaching is illegal hunting the animal for its skin, body parts, and sometimes valuable substances.

There are 7,000 in the wild and 600 in captivity (that means in zoos and reserves) so there are 7,600 total snow leopards in the world. Reserves are areas protected by the government to help the animal from going extinct.

Did you know they use their urine to mark their territory? And they have the longest of the cat family? They also have pale green eyes which unusual for cats. the word leopard is Greek. Uncia uncia is the scientific name.