Counting cats: The endangered snow leopards of the Himalayas
Monday, November 28, 2011 - 17:30
in Biology & Nature
The elusive snow leopard (Panthera uncia) lives high in the mountains across Central Asia. Despite potentially living across 12 countries the actual numbers of this beautiful large cat are largely unknown. It is thought that there might be somewhere between 350 and 500 distributed across Nepal's northern frontier. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Research Notes has used genetic analysis to show that the numbers of snow leopards in the central Himalayas is actually much lower than suggested.