Snow leopards are apex predators, which means they play a key role in keeping an ecosystem diverse. Snow leopards live high in the mountains of Central Asia, and they are rock specialists, usually found in rugged areas. Their range covers about 2 million square kilometres in 12 countries.

A study in Mongolia's South Gobi put GPS collars on 16 snow leopards between 2008 and 2014; the collars logged each cat's location about four times a day for over a year. In that study, males had home ranges of about 80 square miles and females about 48 square miles, much larger than earlier estimates. In an area of western Nepal with plenty of prey, the average snow leopard home range was 12 to 39 square kilometres, and scientists think the true size is probably 20 to 30 percent larger because of the steep ground. A home range is the area where a snow leopard lives and hunts, and as of November 2026 a home range can be over 1,000 square kilometres where prey is scarce.

Camera-trap surveys identify individual snow leopards by the spot patterns on their coats, and camera trapping is one of the scientifically robust methods of studying how many snow leopards live in an area. Estimates of how many snow leopards live in the wild run from roughly 3,900 to 6,500, and as of November 2026 no one knows the number for sure. The IUCN moved the snow leopard from Endangered to Vulnerable in 2017; it had been listed as Endangered since 1986. As of November 2026, the IUCN Red List lists the snow leopard as Vulnerable.

The snow leopard has been on Appendix I of CITES, which controls the trade in wild animals, since 1975. Snow leopards have been hunted for their fur, and as of November 2026 many countries have banned the import of snow leopard fur. About 40 percent of the 170 protected areas across the snow leopard's range are smaller than the space one adult male needs. A 2012 study published in Biological Conservation found that about 30 percent of snow leopard habitat in the Himalayas may be lost as the treeline shifts upward with climate change.

Scientists now call the snow leopard Panthera uncia; it has also been called Uncia uncia and Felis uncia. Snow leopards are thought to be more closely related to the tiger than to the leopard. 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. Its fur is the densest and longest of all the big cats, and its coat has spots and rosettes, which are larger rings that circle smaller spots. It has wide, furry paws that work like snow shoes, and it wraps its long tail around its body to keep warm.

The snow leopard is more inclined than other large cats to chase its prey, using agility across slopes, and it also hunts by creeping up on its prey and then ambushing it. It can take prey that is two to three times its own weight. The three most important prey animals for snow leopards are the blue sheep (also called bharal), the Asiatic ibex and the argali, and snow leopards also eat smaller animals, such as marmots and birds. Snow leopards hunt a large animal about every 8 to 10 days on average. One blue sheep in Nepal will give one snow leopard food for a week.

A female snow leopard mates every second year, because she spends a long time raising her cubs. Snow leopards mate 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 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. Snow leopards are old enough to have cubs when they are about two to three years old, and in the wild they are thought to live about ten to twelve years. Snow leopards in zoos have lived to be 21 or 22 years old.

Words to know

• collars: neck bands
• treeline: the tree limit
• Appendix: a CITES list
• uncia: name part
• agility: quick moving
• robust: strong