Pallas's cat マヌルネコ

Pallas's cat, or the manul, is a wild cat of the high plateaus and mountain grasslands of central Asia. Its long, dense fur makes it look bigger than it is, and it has a flat face, small rounded ears and pupils that stay round as they constrict. In 2020 it was reclassified as Least Concern (LC) on the IUCN Red List, but its population is thought to be decreasing. In Japan it is kept at several zoos.

It has a head-and-body length of 46–65 cm and weighs about 2–5 kg, about the size of a house cat. It is short-legged and stocky, and its very long, dense fur makes it look larger than it is; the fur on its underside is about twice as long as on its back and sides. The coat is grey to yellowish-brown with white tips, giving a frosted look. The ears are small, round and set low on the head. The pupils do not narrow to slits but contract to small circles. The tail is thick, with black rings and a black tip.

It is mainly active at dawn and dusk but can be active at any time. Pikas make up more than half of its diet, and it also eats rodents such as gerbils and voles. It breeds seasonally: in Mongolia it mates in December–March and gives birth mainly in April–May. Gestation lasts about 66–75 days, and litters average 3–4 kittens. In the wild, about 70% of kittens are said to die before becoming independent. In a Mongolian study, average home ranges were about 23 km² for females and about 99 km² for males—large for a small cat.

It is found mainly in central Asia, from Iran in the west to Mongolia and China in the east, with its main populations in Mongolia and China. It has also been recorded in the Himalayas. The 2017 classification tentatively recognizes two subspecies, O. m. manul in southwestern and central Asia and O. m. nigripectus in the Himalayas, but some treat it as having no subspecies.

It favours mountain grassland, shrub steppe and rocky areas, using ravines and rock crevices for cover. It has been recorded from 440 m to about 5,600 m, and in Nepal its presence at about 5,600 m was confirmed by genetic analysis of droppings. It is said to avoid areas with long-lasting deep snow.

No breed is known to have been created by crossing it with house cats. Some naturalists once thought, because of its appearance, that it was an ancestor of the Persian cat, but this idea is no longer supported.

It had been listed as Near Threatened (NT) on the IUCN Red List since 2002, but the assessment published in 2020 moved it to Least Concern (LC). The change reflected better knowledge of its range and numbers rather than conservation success. That assessment estimated about 58,000 mature animals worldwide, a figure with great uncertainty. The population is thought to be decreasing and its habitat fragmented. The main threats are grassland degradation from growing livestock numbers and cultivation, mining, fewer prey and secondary poisoning from pika and rodent control, predation by herding dogs, hunting, and the decline of the marmots whose burrows it uses. It is listed in CITES Appendix II.

It was described as Felis manul in 1776 by the German naturalist Peter Simon Pallas, based on an animal from southern Siberia. Its English name, Pallas's cat, honours him. It is now the only species in the genus Otocolobus, and genetic studies place it in the leopard cat lineage.