Q 01/05

What is the snow leopard's scientific name?

A) Uncia nivalis

B) Panthera pardus

C) Panthera uncia

D) Felis irbis

Answer · why

C) Panthera uncia

It was long placed in its own genus Uncia, until DNA showed it belonged with the lions, tigers, leopards and jaguars in Panthera.

Q 02/05

Which big cat is the snow leopard's closest relative, forming a sister group with it?

A) The leopard

B) The lion

C) The jaguar

D) The tiger

Answer · why

D) The tiger

The two probably diverged between 3.7 and 2.7 million years ago; despite the name, it is not the leopard.

Q 03/05

The old snow leopard name 'ounce' ultimately derives from the Greek word for which animal?

A) Lion

B) Wolf

C) Lynx

D) Bear

Answer · why

C) Lynx

It came through Old French 'l'once'; the Latin species name uncia has the same root.

Q 04/05

Who first described the snow leopard scientifically, as Felis uncia, in 1777?

A) Johann Schreber

B) Carl Linnaeus

C) Georges Cuvier

D) John Edward Gray

Answer · why

A) Johann Schreber

He worked from Buffon's earlier account and wrongly assumed the cat lived along North Africa's Barbary Coast.

Q 05/05

Why can the snow leopard not roar, unlike its Panthera cousins?

A) Its hyoid bone is fully ossified

B) It has no larynx

C) Its lungs are too small

D) Its vocal folds are too short

Answer · why

D) Its vocal folds are too short

Its 9 mm vocal folds offer too little resistance to airflow; instead it meows, grunts, moans and can purr as it exhales.