Pallas's Cat

Pallas's cat, or manul, is about the size of a house cat but looks stockier because of its long, dense, light-grey fur, which is greyer and thicker in winter. The rounded ears are set low on the sides of the head, so it can peer over a rock and show little of its head. Two black zigzag lines run down each cheek, the tail has narrow black rings, and the pupils close to small round discs in bright light. It uses caves, rock crevices and marmot burrows for shelter (Wikipedia, general species account).

In India it is a cat of the high Himalaya. It was first reported in the Indian Himalayan Region in the upper Indus basin of Ladakh in 1991, and in 2019 one was photographed in rocky alpine scrub at 4,800 m in the Nelang valley of Gangotri National Park, Uttarakhand. Across its range it is a specialised hunter of small mammals such as pikas, which it ambushes near burrow entrances or pulls out of shallow burrows with its paws. Females give birth in spring (Wikipedia, general species account).