The snow leopard is usually found above 5000 feet and occurs as high as 18,000 feet. Though nowhere common, it has a wide range in the mountains of Central Asia, from the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan eastward along the Himalaya and across Tibet into southern China, and also northward in the mountains of the U.S.S.R. and of west China to the Sayan Range, on the Siberian border of Mongolia: the few captive specimens caught in the wild come mostly from the Tien Shan Mountains of the U.S.S.R.,
