Snow leopards are rock specialists, usually found in rugged areas, and they keep mainly to cliffs and rocky slopes. The climate where they live is cold and dry, and only grasses and small shrubs can grow on the steep mountain slopes. In the high mountains, snow leopards are usually found at 3,000 metres or more above sea level. In Mongolia and Russia, they live at lower altitudes, around 1,000 meters. A snow leopard has round, short ears that reduce heat loss, and a wide, short nasal cavity that warms the air before it reaches the lungs.

A snow leopard's thick fur keeps it warm, and the fur is up to about 12 centimetres long. It is the densest and longest of all the big cats. A snow leopard has wide, furry paws that work like snow shoes, and it wraps its long tail around its body to keep warm. The three most important prey animals for snow leopards are the blue sheep (also called bharal), the Asiatic ibex and the argali. Snow leopards also eat smaller animals, such as marmots and birds. One blue sheep in Nepal will give one snow leopard food for a week.

A snow leopard hunts by creeping up on its prey and then ambushing it. It can take prey that is two to three times its own weight. Snow leopards hunt a large animal about every 8 to 10 days on average. A snow leopard's home range is the area where it lives and hunts. Where wild prey is plentiful, snow leopards can live on home ranges as small as 30 to 65 square kilometres. As of November 2026, a home range can be over 1,000 square kilometres where prey is scarce. Snow leopards that share an area keep about 2 kilometres from the nearest other snow leopard.

Camera-trap surveys identify individual snow leopards by the spot patterns on their coats. As of November 2026, estimates of how many snow leopards live in the wild run from roughly 3,900 to 6,500, and no one knows the number for sure. The places where snow leopards live cover about 2 million square kilometres in 12 countries. As of November 2026, the IUCN Red List lists the snow leopard as Vulnerable. Snow leopards have been hunted for their fur. As of November 2026, many countries have banned the import of snow leopard fur, and there are now more than 100 protected areas for snow leopards.

A female snow leopard mates every second year, because she spends a long time raising her cubs. Snow leopards mate in the first months of the year, between January and mid-March, and a mother snow leopard is pregnant for about three months. She has her cubs in a sheltered rocky den, and she usually has two or three cubs in a litter. A cub's eyes open when it is about seven days old. A cub is ready to eat solid food at two months old and begins to follow its mother and learn to hunt at three months old. Cubs leave their mother when they are 18 to 22 months old.

Words to know

• specialists: rock experts
• altitudes: heights
• argali: a prey animal
• bharal: blue sheep
• nasal: of the nose
• ibex: a mountain animal