When Snow Leopards Reached Portugal

While the various species of "roaring cat" all share a great many points of similarity, most are easily distinguished from each other. Arguably, one of the most distinctive is the snow leopard (Panthera uncia). Not only does this have unusually thick fur for a wild cat, but it also has a longer tail than we would expect, and the face is shorter and wider than that of other roaring cats.

The snow leopard was first scientifically described by Johann Schreber in 1775 as a member of the genus Felis. The differences from other cats were sufficient that, in 1854, John Edward Gray proposed that it be given its own genus, Uncia. His original definition of the genus did not stand (it also included at least one species of "purring cat"), but it was resurrected again in the early 20th century, and used solely for snow leopards up until 2006. In that year genetic evidence placed it alongside the other "roaring cats" in Panthera, something that has been amply confirmed since.

Antilopine Antelopes: Almost-Gazelles of Tibet

Tibetan gazelle

It's often the case that the common name of a type of animal in English does not map directly to a scientific understanding, especially once we add modern genetic discoveries into the mix. So it is with the word "gazelle", which derives from an Arabic word that literally means something like "graceful" or "slender" and is used to refer to a range of relatively slim, fast-running antelopes. 

In a stricter, scientific sense, gazelles would really only include those species closely related to the genus Gazella, short-coated animals, often with dark stripes down the side, and that tend to live in hot deserts or semidesert regions. Even this excludes animals such as springboks, since they are less related to the true gazelles than is, say, the blackbuck. Most true gazelles live in Africa, but there are some in Asia, mostly in the Middle East, but with one reaching as far east as northern China. However, a second group of animals commonly called "gazelles" also lives in Asia, and not somewhere that most Westerners would generally associate with such animals.