IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Gee, E.P. | |
| Occurence of the Snow Leopard, _panthera unica_ (Schreber), in Bhutan | |
| 1967 Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society (64): 552-553 | |
In Ellerman & Morrison-Scott's checklist of Palaearctic and Indian Mammals, the range of the snow leopard is given as only Kashmir; as far as the Indian subcontinent is concerned. In Prater's book of Indian animals it is given as 'In India. along the whole Himalayan chain from Kashmir to Sikkim. Northwards..' I can find no mention of Bhutan being given as part of the range of this creature. But on two recent visits to Bhutan I have personally seen no less than four skins of Snow Leopard, all of which were killed in Bhutan and were in the possession of the King, who has kindly pointed out to me on the map the places in Bhutan they were obtained. Evidently they occur all along the northern part of Bhutan, and they sometimes descend to quite low elevations - an animal shot as low as 9,000 feet was very dark and a color photograph of this skin was shown to the British Museum of Natural History who identified it as 'undoubtedly that of a Snow Leopard'. The other three skins, were of the normal white background color. Books on Mammals, therefore, need to be amended accordingly in order to include Bhutan in the range of the Snow Leopard. |
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