Abstract: Over the last decades tiger, leopard and snow leopard were fully exterminated in many areas, where they formerly were common species and now became very rare ones. Few leopards can still be found in Caucasus, Copet-Dag (Turkmenistan) and south of Primorskiy krai. Irbis is remaining a common species only in the difficult-of-access highland areas of Tien Shan and very rare in the Altai. Tiger traces are sometimes found in the Amudarya river valley and in the taiga Sihote-Alinya in the Far East.

Abstract: It gives the description of genus Panthera: lion, tiger, leopard, jaguar and snow leopard. The mountains of Central Asia and South Siberia limit the habitat of snow leopard in the USSR. This species is also distributed in the Himalayas, Tibet, and mountains of Mongolia. In summer, it lives at 3,660 3,970 m above sea level, while in winter, following the ungulates; snow leopard descends to 1,800 m. In the Himalayas, it ascends up to 5,500 m above sea level in summer. In Djungar and Talas Ala-Tau, snow leopard keeps at 600 1,200 m. It takes refuge in caves and cracks of rocks. Snow leopard is mostly active in twilights and night, rarer in daylight, and preys on ungulates, hares, marmots, and others. The coupling period is winter or early spring. A gestation is about 90 days. It has 3 5 cubs in a litter.