Hi!! As a Zoologist fan I think it's my time to shine hehe, Im just gonna insert myself to this convo (including the one in the comment section) to explain and try to have a final conclusion to what Clavis is exaclty here XD (Update aftzr I just finished writing: I'm gonna yapp a lot IM SO SORRY 😭)
1st of all, Cybird obv never cared for zoology accuracy which is a bit sad, but normal, concidering its a fantasy otome game TT Most of the prince's animal are called, in the game's dialogue, by their specie common name: like lions, foxes and bears for example.
But the problem in this is that their subspecie aren't specified (except Rio and Silvio, the lucky ones), which can lead to confusion or mistakes, like Clavis being a gray leopard.
And while we're on the topic, some other pirnces don't even have their specie specified! TT Like Sariel who is said to be a snake, but snake is a suborder, not a specie in itself. Or if we really are talking about actual BIG zoology mistakes, Gil is a "black tiger", black tigers have never existed 😭 The closest thing we got to black tigers is a rare genetic mutation of the bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) which make the stripes blackers and bigger ig, but still verry far from an actual black tiger...
Anyway SO for Clavis his crest is a leopard, and he is called a leopard in the game, but his design is represented as a gray feline, contrary to Leopards, who are generaly NOT grey at all.
As @dzvelinaskebiyars said, he looks like a snow leopard here in the chibi version, because he is grey/white and looks kinda fluffy, big. I believe that Cybird also want us to think of him as a snow leopard since it's verry popular... but that would be a hell of a mistake...zoology like TT Because while they share a common name in english, and many other languages, including japanese, snow leopard and leopards, are not even from the same specie at all 😭 They both come down from the genus "Panthera", but that's pretty much all they have in common... since funnily enough snow leopards are actually closer to tigers then leopard 😀
On the official japanese social media he is simply said to be "hyō" (leopard) and not "yukihyō" (snow leopard) so I would like to assume that they would have directly called him a snow leopard or a panthere instead of a leopard (if they even knew the difference to begin with) if they wanted it to be it.
So let's say that all of this is intentional and that he is an actual leopard, and not a snow leopard, why is he grey? The most logical explanation is that he is an Arabian Leopard (Panthera pardus nimr) which is a subspecie to leopards, they tend to go on the grayer side and are lean/athletic. On the cg card of Clavis and his associated animal, it actually looks like it has short furr and could correspond with an Arabian Leopard instead of a Snow leopard who are verry fluffy.
For the final word of I'd say: the chibi looks like a snow leopard, the cg looks like an arabian leopard, and the game says he is a leopard with nothing else to add.
The score is 2:1 for the arabian leopard so that's gonna be my conclusion XD
