my what a long tail you have

I tried to find a different species to focus on, I really did. But I like these snow leopards too much.
Not a great picture, but it illustrates something interesting. Their very long tails, which can be used almost as a blanket to help keep warm when it gets very cold out.
There's something interesting that I've noticed about the leopards (this is true for the Amur leopard as well). I tend to pay attention to what everyone else around me is saying when I'm taking pictures of the zoo animals, in particular I'm interested in what the kids say about the animals. I've heard many people call the leopards cheetahs. This always baffled me. I'm sure I'm more aware of feline taxonomy than most people, but still I can't believe that a leopard looks like a cheetah to the average person. Especially the snow leopards, they're clearly built for the opposite environment of the cheetah, that is cold snow covered mountains instead of the African plains. I can almost understand when people call African Wild Dogs hyenas (even though they really are canine, while hyenas are vastly different animals slightly more related to cats than dogs). But leopards look nothing like cheetahs.
I should acknowledge at this stage that snow leopards aren't actually leopards at all. Amur leopards are a leopard subspecies, but snow leopards are their own species and are currently in an uncertain classification. They used to be put in the Panthera genus, but then were put in their own one, Uncia, where they became Uncia uncia. My joke was "the feline so nice they named it twice". But now some are putting them back into Panthera. The zoo in fact has two plaques that give their binomial name (the combination of genus and species used as the scientific name of an animal), and each gives a different one. Perhaps they were installed at different times and the later one used the updated name.
But here's the interesting thing. I'm incensed that zoogoers keep calling them cheetahs. I really have to restrain myself from correcting them, but I think correcting a mother in front of her little kid is kind of rude. But in my reading on snow leopards I've learned that they're thought to be more closely related to cheetahs than leopards.
Could it be that the people who call them cheetahs were picking up on some similarity that I wasn't catching? Maybe they both share longer than average tails, although for somewhat different reasons.
Otherwise I can't imagine why people would think cheetah. Is it just that that's the only spotted cat of the big three of the big cats? By that I mean lions, tigers, and cheetahs, the big cats most often featured in tv shows or in movies (I can think of at least two movies where the plot centered on a particular cheetah).
Maybe I'm reaching for an explanation since they call the Amur leopards cheetahs too.


If it seems like I'm obsessing about this too much, well, maybe I am. But I've always loved the less popular big cats. I've always felt that lions and tigers and cheetahs received an unfair proportion of attention. They're always the token big cats.
Well I feel it's time that the other felines get some attention! Actually, I feel that the jaguars in particular are amazingly beautiful animals, I'd be plastering their pictures all over the place if I could get access to them.
But I can sure do my part to promote Amur and snow leopards. And I'm working on the elusive clouded leopard, which Brookfield also has.