A study led by Stanford University and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has revealed that snow leopards have the lowest genetic diversity of any big cat species -- lower even than cheetahs, long known for their genetic bottlenecks. Researchers analysed whole-genome data from 37 individual snow leopards and uncovered that this low diversity is not the result of recent inbreeding, but rather a reflection of the species' long-term demographic history.