Leopard, Leopard

Once distributed across southern Asia and Africa, from Korea to South Africa, the leopard's range of distribution has decreased radically over time due to hunting and loss of habitat, and the leopard now chiefly occurs in sub-Saharan Africa. There are fragmented populations in Pakistan, India, Indochina, Malaysia, and China. Due to the loss of range and continual declines in population, the cat has been downgraded to "Near Threatened" species; its numbers are greater than that of the other Panthera species, all of which face more acute conservation concerns.

Its fur is marked with rosettes which lack internal spots, unlike those of the jaguar. Leopards that are melanistic, either completely black or very dark in coloration, are one of the big cats known colloquially as black panthers.

The leopard is held to have diverged from the Panthera lineage subsequent to these two species, but before the lion and jaguar.

Although smaller than the other members of the Panthera genus, the leopard is still able to take large prey given a massive skull that well utilizes powerful jaw muscles.

Shoulder height is 45 to 80 cm (18-31 in). Males are about 30% larger than females, weighing 37 to 91 kg (82 to 200 lbs) compared to 28 to 60 kg (62 to 132 lbs) for females. The larger-bodied populations of leopard are generally found in areas isolated from competing large predators, especially from dominant big cats like lions and tigers.

The leopard has rosettes rather than cheetah's simple spots, but they lack internal spots, unlike the jaguar. The leopard is larger and more muscular than the cheetah but slightly smaller than the jaguar. The leopard's black, irregular rosettes serve as camouflage. They are circular in East Africa but tend to be square-shaped in southern Africa.

Estimates are as low as one in 80 or 100. In the dense forests of the Ethiopian Highlands, however, the black leopard is much more common than in Africa generally; as many as one in five leopards may be melanistic.

There have been very rare examples where the spots of a normal black leopard have coalesced to give a jet black leopard with no visible markings. They may form swirls and, in some places, solid black areas. Unlike a true black leopard the tawny background colour is visible in places. One pseudo-melanistic leopard had a tawny orange coat with coalescing rosettes and spots, but white belly with normal black spots (like a black-and-tan dog).

This is different from a spotted leopard, but similar to a king cheetah hence the modern cryptozoology term king leopard. Between 1885 and 1934, six pseudo-melanistic leopards were recorded in the Albany and Grahamstown districts of South Africa. This indicated a mutation in the local leopard population. Other king leopards have been recorded from Malabar in southwestern India. Shooting for trophies may have wiped out these populations.

The leopard is also very agile, and can run over 58 km/h (36 mph), leap over six metres and jump up to three metres vertically.

However, there have been recorded instances of leopards hunting during the light, especially when the sky is overcast. It spends much of its day resting and sleeping, up in the branches of trees, underneath rocks or in the grass.

Although mid-sized animals are preferred, the leopard will eat anything from dung beetles to male giant elands.

Schaller, p. 290 In Africa, mid-sized antelopes provide a majority of the leopard's prey, especially impala and Thomson's gazelles. Schaller, p. 291 In Asia the leopard preys on deer such as chitals and muntjacs as well as various Asian antelopes and Ibex. Prey preference estimates in southern India showed that the most favouredprey of the leopard was the chital. JBNHS Vol. 104(2), [http://www.bnhs.org/bo/documents/JBNHS_104_2/Arivazhagan.pdf FOOD HABITS OF LEOPARD (PANTHERA PARDUS FUSCA), DHOLE (CUON ALPINUS)AND STRIPED HYENA (HYAENA HYAENA) IN A TROPICAL DRY THORN FORESTOF SOUTHERN INDIA], 1C. ARIVAZHAGAN2, R. ARUMUGAM3 AND K. THIYAGESAN41Accepted May 20052Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru 560 012, Karnataka, India. Email: c_ari@rediffmail.com3Indian Institute of Science Field station, Masinagudi, The Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu, India. Email: rrmugam@yahoo.com4Department of Zoology, A.V.C. College, Mannampandal, Mayiladuthurai, Tamil Nadu, India.Email: kthiyagesan1@rediffmail.com A study at the Wolong Reserve in China revealed how adaptable the leopard's hunting behaviour is: over the course of seven years the vegetative cover receded, and the animals opportunistically shifted from primarily consuming tufted deer to instead pursuing bamboo rats and other smaller prey.

Eventually, a fight for reproductive rights may take place. Depending on the region, leopards may mate all year round (Asia and Africa) or seasonally during January to February (Manchuria and Siberia). The estrous cycle lasts about 46 days and the female usually is in heat for 67 days.

Around three months the infants begin to follow the mother out on hunts. At one year of age leopard young can probably fend for themselves but they remain with the mother for 1824 months.

The IUCN notes that within sub-Saharan Africa the species is "still numerous and even thriving in marginal habitats" where other large cats have disappeared, but that populations in North Africa may be extinct. In Asia, data on distribution is not consistent: populations in Southwest and Central Asia are small and fragmented; in the northeast portion of the range, they are critically endangered; but in the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and China, the leopard is still relatively abundant.

It is generally considered nocturnal, for instance, but radio-tracking and scat analysis in West Africa has found that rainforest leopards are more likely to be diurnal and crepuscular. Forest leopards are also more specialized in prey selection and exhibit seasonal differences in activity patterns.

A single lion or tiger is capable of killing an adult leopard. Leopards have adapted to live alongside these other predators by hunting at different times of the day, and by avoiding areas frequented by them. In search of safety, the leopard will often stash its young or a recent kill high up in a tree.

Three sets of these hybrids were bred in the late 1890s and early 1900s by Carl Hagenbeck at his animal park in Hamburg, Germany. Most did not reach adulthood. One of these was purchased in 1898 by Berlin Zoo. A similar hybrid in Berlin Zoo purchased from Hagenbeck was a cross between a male leopard and a female puma. Hamburg Zoo's specimen was the reverse pairing, the one in the black and white photo, fathered by a puma bred to an Indian leopardess.

The best location to see leopards in Africa is in the Sabi Sand Private Game Reserve in South Africa, where leopards are habituated to safari vehicles and are seen on a daily basis at very close range. In Asia, one can see leopards at Yala National Park in Sri Lanka, which has one of the world's highest densities of wild leopards, but even here sightings are by no means guaranteed because more than half the park is closed to the public, allowing the animals to thrive. Another good destination for leopard watching is the recently reopened Wilpattu National Park, also in Sri Lanka. They are widely distributed in India, leading to much human-animal conflict. Among the best places to observe leopards in India are national parks in Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

These traditional lion passant guardants appear in the coat of arms of England and many of its former colonies; more modern naturalistic (leopard-like) depictions appear on the coat of arms of several African nations including Benin, Malawi, Somalia, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Gabon which uses a black panther.

Most healthy leopards prefer wild prey to humans, but injured, sickly or struggling cats with a shortage of regular prey often turn to hunting people and may become habituated to it. In extreme cases, both in India, a leopard dubbed "the Leopard of Rudraprayag" may have killed over 125 people; "Panar Leopard" killed over 400 after injury by a poacher made it unable to hunt normal prey.

The Spotted Devil of Gummalapur, Nine Man-Eaters and one Rogue , Kenneth Anderson, Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1954 Kenneth Anderson, who had first hand experience with many man-eating leopards, described them as far more threatening than tigers: Because they can subsist on small prey and are less dependent on large prey, leopards are less likely to turn to man-eating than either lions or tigers. However, leopards might be attracted to human settlements by livestock or pets, especially dogs, and they may resort to the eating of humans should conditions demand it, and no other food is available.

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