The Pallas‘s cat is a highly specialised predator of small mammals, which it catches by stalking or ambushing near exits of burrows. It also pulls out rodents with its paws from shallow burrows. In the Altai Mountains, remains of long-tailed ground squirrel ("Urocitellus undulatus"), flat-skulled shrew ("Sorex roboratus"), Pallas's pika ("Ochotona pallasi") and bird feathers were found near breeding burrows of Pallas's cats. In Transbaikal, it preys on Daurian pika ("Ochotona dauurica"), steppe pika ("O. pusilla"), Daurian ground squirrel ("Spermophilus dauricus") and young of red-billed chough ("Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax").