WASHINGTON, United States - The Dallas Zoo was closed on Friday as police officers equipped with drones helped zoo staff search for an escaped clouded leopard.

"If you happen to see a cat that is bigger than a housecat, smaller than a bobcat, we'd love a heads-up," said Harrison Edell, a vice president for animal care at the Texas zoo. "We'll take any tip we can get."

Edell stressed that the clouded leopard, Nova, "does not pose a danger to humans."

"The cat that we're looking for is about 20 pounds, between 20 and 25 pounds (nine and 11 kilograms)," he said.

"More likely than not, when she's scared, she's going to climb a tree, stay out of our way, hunt some squirrels and birds, and hope not to be noticed."

The zoo said it discovered Nova was missing when staff checked the enclosure Friday morning that the four-year-old cat shares with her sister, Luna, and found a tear in the mesh.

"She likely went straight up to the trees and has not come down so we are spending a lot of time with binoculars," he said. "We don't believe that she's going to go very far."

Edell said the Dallas police were assisting in the search, using drones with infrared capability to scour the treetops.

If someone should encounter Nova "we don't want anybody trying to grab her," he said.

"She's still got a full complement of claws and teeth. She's not a house cat. This is still a wild animal."

Clouded leopards are native to the Himalayas and parts of Southeast Asia and China.