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Concept
Snow leopard
Summary
The snow leopard (Panthera uncia), commonly known as the ounce, is a species of large cat in the genus Panthera of the family Felidae. The species is native to the mountain ranges of Central and South Asia. It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List because the global population is estimated to number fewer than 10,000 mature individuals and is expected to decline about 10% by 2040. It is mainly threatened by poaching and habitat destruction following infrastructural developments. It inhabits alpine and subalpine zones at elevations of , ranging from eastern Afghanistan, the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau to southern Siberia, Mongolia and western China. In the northern part of its range, it also lives at lower elevations.
Taxonomically, the snow leopard was long classified in the monotypic genus Uncia. Since phylogenetic studies revealed the relationships among Panthera species, it has since been considered a member of that genus. Two subspecies were described based on morphological differences, but genetic differences between the two have not yet been confirmed. It is therefore regarded as a monotypic species. The species is widely depicted in Kyrgyz culture.
The Old French word once, which was intended to be used for the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), is where the Latin name uncia and the English word ounce both originate. Once is believed to have originated from a previous form of the word lynx through a process known as false splitting. The word once was originally considered to be pronounced as l'once, where l''' stands for the elided form of the word la ('the') in French. Once was then understood to be the name of the animal.
The word panther derives from the classical Latin panthēra, itself from the ancient Greek πάνθηρ pánthēr, which was used for spotted cats.
Felis uncia was the scientific name used by Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber in 1777 who described a snow leopard based on an earlier description by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, assuming that the cat occurred along the Barbary Coast, in Persia, East India and China.
Official source
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