A stocky wild cat of China's high grasslands and mountain scrub. Its coat changes with the season, and the tip of its short tail is black.
Its legs and tail are relatively short. The coat changes from pale gray in winter to brown in summer, with dark gray stripes on the sides, legs, and tail and a black tail tip.
Camera traps recorded one female and her two kittens from September 2018 to February 2019 in alpine meadow at Chiat’ung, in southeastern Qinghai’s Sanjiangyuan region. This family used three breeding dens in sequence. Cameras recorded the female nursing and watching the kittens, grooming, basking, and playing with them. The kittens left the third den on 24 December 2018, and the female left in early February 2019.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.