"Three Subspecies of Snow Leopard Revealed" Topic

"The snow leopard is most closely related to the tiger (Panthera tigris), having diverged over 2 million years ago.

It inhabits a vast area of 0.6 million sq.miles (1.6 million sq.km) across 12 countries in Asia.

It is a high-altitude animal that occupies mountains primarily between 0.9 and 2.8 miles (1.5-4.5 km), with confirmed sightings to 3.7 miles (6 km) in the Himalayas. This region is characterized by low oxygen levels, temperature extremes, aridity, low productivity, and harsh climatic condition, yet harbors many distinctive species…"
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What a beautifull big cat!

Amicalement
Armand

Hmm. New whales, dolphins, marsupials, monkeys, and now leopards.

Are they discovering more new large animal species (not just bugs or little birds) than there are animal extinctions happening? Or are they evening things out by automatically calling them endangered, just as they are being discovered, even when nothing is known about them yet?

Just curious.

Dan
PS. Perhaps global warming is just producing more species for us to eat. :)

Much has to do with the somewhat artificial nature of drawing a line between species. Dna has allowed the scientific community to sometimes achieve consensus where there had been none.

In this case it's not a new species. Simply that they now consider snow leopards to have three sub species. So it's not like they picked up a rock and found a new type of big cat.