It inhabits alpine and subalpine zones at elevations of 3,000–4,500 m (9,800–14,800 ft), ranging from eastern Afghanistan, the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau to southern Siberia, Mongolia and western China.

[2] The word panther derives from the classical Latin panthēra, itself from the ancient Greek πάνθηρ pánthēr, which was used for spotted cats.

[3] 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.

[4] The genus name Uncia was proposed by John Edward Gray in 1854 for Asian cats with a long and thick tail.

[5] Felis irbis, proposed by Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg in 1830, was a skin of a female snow leopard collected in the Altai Mountains.

[6] Felis uncioides proposed by Thomas Horsfield in 1855 was a snow leopard skin from Nepal in the collection of the Museum of the East India Company.

[8] Panthera baikalensis-romanii proposed by a Russian scientist in 2000 was a dark brown snow leopard skin from the Petrovsk-Zabaykalsky District in southern Transbaikal.

[20] Based on the phylogenetic analysis of the DNA sequence sampled across the living Felidae, the snow leopard forms a sister group with the tiger (P. tigris).

[26] The earliest known definitive record of the modern snow leopard is dated to the Late Pleistocene based on a specimen discovered from the Niuyan Cave of China.

A Middle Pleistocene specimen from the Zhoukoudian Peking Man Site which is similar to the modern snow leopard has been referred to as P. aff.

Panthera uncia pyrenaica was described in 2022 based on fossil material found in France that was dated to the early Middle Pleistocene around 0.57 to 0.53 million years ago.

[28] Panthera uncia lusitana was described in 2025 based on fossil material discovered from Middle Pleistocene strata in Portugal, and the describers of P. u. lusitana assigned P. u. pyrenaica outside the modern snow leopard as P. pyrenaica due to the lack of similar traits, though it might represent a basal related species.

[20] The snow leopard's fur is whitish to grey with black spots on the head and neck, with larger rosettes on the back, flanks and bushy tail.

Its small rounded ears help to minimize heat loss, and its broad paws effectively distribute the body weight for walking on snow.

Fur on the undersides of the paws enhances its grip on steep and unstable surfaces, and helps to minimize heat loss.

[33] The snow leopard differs from the other Panthera species by a shorter muzzle, an elevated forehead, a vertical chin and a less developed posterior process of the lower jaw.

[8] Despite its partly ossified hyoid bone, a snow leopard cannot roar, as its 9 mm (0.35 in) short vocal folds provide little resistance to airflow.

[40] In summer, the snow leopard usually lives above the tree line on alpine meadows and in rocky regions at elevations of 2,700 to 6,000 m (8,900 to 19,700 ft).

In Nepal's Shey Phoksundo National Park, the home ranges of five adult radio-collared snow leopards largely overlapped, though they rarely met.

[31] Their urine contains many characteristic low molecular weight compounds with diverse functional groups including pentanol, hexanol, heptanol, 3-octanone, nonanal and indole, which possibly play a role in chemical communication.

[46][47] It prefers prey ranging in weight from 36 to 76 kg (79 to 168 lb), but also hunts smaller mammals such as Himalayan marmot (Marmota himalayana), pika and vole species.

In the Himalayas, it preys mostly on Himalayan blue sheep, Siberian ibex (C. sibirica), white-bellied musk deer (Moschus leucogaster) and wild boar (Sus scrofa).

[48][49] Snow leopard feces collected in northern Pakistan also contained remains of rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta), masked palm civet (Paguma larvata), Cape hare (Lepus capensis), house mouse (Mus musculus), Kashmir field mouse (Apodemus rusiges), grey dwarf hamster (Cricetulus migratorius) and Turkestan rat (Rattus pyctoris).

[50] In 2017, a snow leopard was photographed carrying a freshly killed woolly flying squirrel (Eupetaurus cinereus) near Gangotri National Park.

[31] The snow leopard actively pursues prey down steep mountainsides, using the momentum of its initial leap to chase animals for up to 300 m (980 ft).

In 2016, a survey of Chinese websites revealed 15 advertisements for 44 snow leopard products; the dealers offered skins, canine teeth, claws and a tongue.

[60] Greenhouse gas emissions will likely cause a shift of the treeline in the Himalayas and a shrinking of the alpine zone, which may reduce snow leopard habitat by an estimated 30%.

Hunting snow leopards is only permitted for the purposes of conservation and monitoring, and to eliminate a threat to the life of humans and livestock.

[60] In China, they have been protected by law since 1989; hunting and trading snow leopards or their body parts constitute a criminal offence that is punishable by the confiscation of property, a fine and a sentence of at least 10 years in prison.

Also supporting the initiative were the Snow Leopard Network, the World Bank's Global Tiger Initiative, the United Nations Development Programme, the World Wild Fund for Nature, the United States Agency for International Development, and Global Environment Facility.