Himalayan Lynx or Cougar? Video shows rare animal spotted in Ladakh, netizens in awe. Watch!
A video shared by an Indian Forest Officer (IFS) of a beautiful and rare animal is getting attention on social media.
Parveen Kaswan on Twitter posted the video on March 01, which shows a stock cat-like creature with peaked ears spotted in Ladakh and further asked users to guess the name of the animal, NDTV reported.
"A beautiful and rare animal found in India. In Ladakh region. Not many have heard about it. Guess what," his tweet read.
The post till now has recieved over 10,000 thousand likes, some 1,306 retweets and over 1.8 million views.
The forest officer credited the video to Sherine Fatima, who is the first female singer of the Balti community in Ladakh.
The guessing game for the animal began, where some users said that the animal looks like a Puma or Cougar, while others said it is a Himalayan Lynx.
According to National Geographic, lynxes are medium-sized, solitary wildcats that are generally found in the forests of North America, Europe and Asia.
It added that the name 'lynx' comes from a Greek word that means "to shine" because of the beautiful reflective eyes. Their defining features are prominent tufts of hair above their ears, and their short, stubby tails.
Some 10 hours later, Kaswan confirmed the animal to be a "Himalayan Lynx."
His tweet read, "It’s a Himalayan Lynx. One of the wild cat species found in India. A beautiful and rare creature. Found in Leh-Ladakh. Other found in this zone are Snow leopard and Pallas cat. Pic Wikipedia.
Now can you tell me what are the other creatures in video and what are they doing."
