Hello, Kitty! The Oldest Big Cat Fossil Found
Modern Snow Leopard The modern snow leopard is the closest living relative to Panthera blytheae, a recently discovered fossil cat species. Photo by Bernard Landgraf, CC BY-SA 3.0 Six million years ago, the Himalayas were still pretty darn cold. The terrain was probably a bit rougher than they are nowadays, having had less time to weather. Yet, just as they do today, animals lived in that inhospitable climate, navigating the rocky terrain and ambushing prey among the bluffs. One such resident was Panthera blytheae, a newly discovered animal that's now the oldest-known big cat by about three million years. Reconstruction of Panthera blytheae Illustrated by Mauricio Antón "It is probably pretty reasonable to assume it looked like a clouded leopard,"...