This page is high in the mountains of Asia, where the forest gives way to rock and snow. Move your pointer and your animal will pad, plod or scamper after you. Choose a different animal at the bottom, and tap the notes to open them.
The Himalaya right now checking the sky…
It is so well hidden and so rarely seen that local people call it the mountain ghost.
Its tail is almost as long as its body. It helps with balance on cliffs and wraps round its face like a scarf.
Wide, furry paws spread its weight on snow.
It can jump about nine metres, across a gap or down onto its prey.
Unlike other big cats, the snow leopard cannot roar. It mews, growls and makes a puffing sound called a chuff.
Its wide nose warms the freezing air before it reaches the lungs.
Meet them all
Panthera uncia
A pale, smoky-grey cat with dark rosettes, thick fur and a very long, thick tail.
Ailuropoda melanoleuca
A black and white bear with black ears, black eye patches and a round white face.
Ailurus fulgens
A cat-sized animal with russet fur, a white face, black legs and a long ringed tail.
Bos mutus
A huge, shaggy, dark-brown ox with a hump, long curved horns and a skirt of hair almost to the ground.
Lophophorus impejanus
A pheasant that shines like metal: green head with a crest, copper neck, blue and purple back, orange tail.
Macaca mulatta
A sandy-brown monkey with a bare pink face, living in big, noisy troops.
Through the year
Mountain animals are there all year, moving up the slopes in summer and down in winter. The animal following you is shown in red.
Good to know
All fourteen of the world's mountains above 8,000 metres are in Asia.
High up there is much less oxygen. Mountain animals have big lungs and blood that carries more of it.
Climbing a mountain is like travelling north: forest, then shrubs, then meadow, then bare rock and ice.
The misty mountains of China are covered in bamboo, which feeds both kinds of panda.
Rivers that begin in these mountains bring water to nearly two billion people.
Himalaya means home of snow in Sanskrit.
Real photos of the animals on this page. Tap one to see it bigger.
Photos are from Wikimedia Commons and are used under free licences. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews. Open a photo to see who took it.
The Himalaya and the mountains of China are the highest on Earth. The air is thin, the cold is fierce and food is scarce, so the animals here have thick coats and plenty of patience.
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