Snow leopard

Snow leopard Strategy: background matching on a big scale. Smoky gray fur broken up by dark rosettes and spots turns a large predator into one more patch of rock on Asia's steep, high mountain slopes. It is so good at this that it is widely called the ghost of the mountains, and you could look straight at one from a distance with no idea it was there. This is the hardest animal on the list to see in person, and one of the rarest cats in the world. If you go looking, bring strong binoculars and scan rocky ridgelines slowly; the thick, meter-long tail it uses for balance is often the giveaway.