The leopard (Panthera pardus) is one of the five extant species in the genus Panthera, a member of the Felidae. It occurs in a wide range in sub-Saharan Africa, in small parts of Western and Central Asia, on the Indian subcontinent to Southeast and East Asia. It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List because leopard populations are threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, and are declining in large parts of the global range. In Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuwait, Syria, Libya, Tunisia and most likely in Morocco, leopard populations have already been extirpated. Contemporary records suggest that the leopard occurs in only 25% of its historical global range.
Leopards are hunted illegally, and their body parts are smuggled in the wildlife trade for medicinal practices and decoration.
Compared to other wild cats, the leopard has relatively short legs and a long body with a large skull. Its fur is marked with rosettes. It is similar in appearance to the jaguar, but has a smaller, lighter physique, and its rosettes are generally smaller, more densely packed and without central spots. Both leopards and jaguars that are melanistic are known as black panthers. The leopard is distinguished by its well-camouflaged fur, opportunistic hunting behaviour, broad diet, strength, and its ability to adapt to a variety of habitats ranging from rainforest to steppe, including arid and montane areas. It can run at speeds of up to 58 kilometres per hour (36 mph). The earliest known leopard fossils excavated in Europe are estimated 600,000 years old, dating to the late Early Pleistocene. Leopard fossils were also found in Japan.
Description & appearance
The leopard's fur is generally soft and thick, notably softer on the belly than on the back. Its skin colour varies between individuals from pale yellowish to dark golden with dark spots grouped in rosettes. Its belly is whitish and its ringed tail is shorter than its body. Its pupils are round. Leopards living in arid regions are pale cream, yellowish to ochraceous and rufous in colour; those living in forests and mountains are much darker and deep golden. Spots fade toward the white underbelly and the insides and lower parts of the legs. Rosettes are circular in East African leopard populations, and tend to be squarish in Southern African and larger in Asian leopard populations. The fur tends to be grayish in colder climates, and dark golden in rain forest habitats. The pattern of the rosettes is unique in each individual. Its fur tends to grow longer in colder climates. The guard hairs protecting the basal hairs are short, 3–4 mm (1⁄8–5⁄32 in) in face and head, and increase in length toward the flanks and the belly to about 25–30 mm (1–1 1⁄8 in). Juveniles have woolly fur, and appear to be dark-coloured due to the densely arranged spots. Its white-tipped tail is about 60–100 cm (24–39 in) long, white underneath and with spots that form incomplete bands toward the tail's end.The leopard's rosettes differ from those of the jaguar, which are darker and with smaller spots inside. The cheetah has small round spots without any rosettes.
Like most cat species, the leopard has a diploid chromosome number of 38. The chromosomes include four acrocentric, five metacentric, seven submetacentric and two telocentric pairs.The largest skull recorded for a black panther from India, recorded in 1920, measured 28 cm (11 in) in basal length, and 20 cm (8 in) in breadth, and weighed 1,000 g (2 lb 4 oz). The skull of a West African panther measured 28.6 cm (11 1⁄4 in) in basal length, and 18.1 cm (7 1⁄8 in) in breadth, and weighed 790 g (1 lb 12 oz).
The leopard is sexually dimorphic, males are larger and heavier than females. It is muscular, with relatively short limbs and a broad head. Males stand 60–70 cm (23 1⁄2–27 1⁄2 in) at the shoulder, while females are 57–64 cm (22 1⁄2–25 in) tall. The head-and-body length ranges between 90 and 196 cm (2 ft 11 1⁄2 in and 6 ft 5 in) with a 66-to-102-centimetre-long (26 to 40 in) tail. Sizes vary geographically. Males weigh 37–90 kg (82–198 lb), and females 28–60 kg (62–132 lb).
Usually, leopards are larger in areas where they are at the top of the food chain, without competitive restriction from larger predators such as lions and tigers. Some leopards in North Africa allegedly were as large as Barbary lions. In 1913, an Algerian newspaper reported a leopard killed that allegedly measured about 275 cm (9 ft 0 in) in total length. To compare, male lions measure 266–311 cm (8 ft 8 1⁄2 in–10 ft 2 1⁄2 in) from head to end of tail.
The maximum weight of a wild leopard is about 96 kg (212 lb), recorded in Southern Africa. It measured 262 cm (8 ft 7 in). An Indian leopard killed in Himachal Pradesh in 2016 measured 261 cm (8 ft 7 in) with an estimated weight of 78.5 kg (173 lb) was perhaps the largest known wild leopard.
Melanistic leopards are also called black panthers. Melanism in leopards is inherited as a recessive trait relatively to the spotted form. Interbreeding in melanistic leopards produces a significantly smaller litter size than is produced by normal pairings. The black panther is common foremost in tropical and subtropical moist forests like the equatorial rainforest of the Malay Peninsula and the tropical rainforest on the slopes of some African mountains such as Mount Kenya. Between January 1996 and March 2009, leopards were photographed at 16 sites in the Malay Peninsula in a sampling effort of more than 1,000 camera trap nights. Of the 445 photographs of melanistic leopards, 410 were taken in study sites south of the Kra Isthmus, where the non-melanistic morph was never photographed. These data indicate the near-fixation of the dark allele in the region. The expected time for the fixation of this recessive allele due to genetic drift alone ranged from about 1,100 years to about 100,000 years. Pseudomelanistic leopards have also been reported.
In India, nine pale and white leopards were reported between 1905 and 1967.
Leopards exhibiting erythrism were recorded between 1990 and 2015 in South Africa's Madikwe Game Reserve and in Mpumalanga. The cause of this morph, known as a "strawberry leopard" or "pink panther", is not well understood.
Distribution & habitat
The leopard has the largest distribution of all wild cats, occurring widely in Africa as well as the Caucasus and Asia, although populations are fragmented and declining. It is considered to be extirpated in North Africa. It inhabits foremost savanna and rainforest, and areas where grasslands, woodlands, and riverine forests remain largely undisturbed. In sub-Saharan Africa, it is still numerous and surviving in marginal habitats where other large cats have disappeared. There is considerable potential for human-leopard conflict due to leopards preying on livestock.
Leopard populations on the Arabian Peninsula are small and fragmented. In southeastern Egypt, a leopard killed in 2017 was the first record in this area in 65 years. In western and central Asia, it avoids deserts, areas with long snow cover and proximity to urban centres.
In Nepal's Kanchenjunga Conservation Area, a melanistic leopard was photographed at an elevation of 4,300 m (14,100 ft) by a camera trap in May 2012. In the Indian subcontinent, the leopard is still relatively abundant, with greater numbers than those of other Panthera species. In India, some leopard populations live quite close to human settlements and even in semi-developed areas. Although adaptable to human disturbances, leopards require healthy prey populations and appropriate vegetative cover for hunting for prolonged survival and thus rarely linger in heavily developed areas. Due to the leopard's stealth, people often remain unaware that they live in nearby areas.
In Sri Lanka, leopards were recorded in Yala National Park and in unprotected forest patches, tea estates, grasslands, home gardens, pine and eucalyptus plantations.
In Myanmar, leopards were recorded for the first time by camera traps in the hill forests of Myanmar's Karen State. The Northern Tenasserim Forest Complex in southern Myanmar is considered a leopard stronghold. In Thailand, leopards are present in the Western Forest Complex, Kaeng Krachan-Kui Buri, Khlong Saeng-Khao Sok protected area complexes and in Hala Bala Wildlife Sanctuary bordering Malaysia. In Peninsular Malaysia, leopards are present in Belum-Temengor, Taman Negara and Endau-Rompin National Parks. In Laos, leopards were recorded in Nam Et-Phou Louey National Biodiversity Conservation Area and Nam Kan National Protected Area. In Cambodia, leopards inhabit deciduous dipterocarp forest in Phnom Prich Wildlife Sanctuary and Mondulkiri Protected Forest. In southern China, leopards were recorded only in the Qinling Mountains during surveys in 11 nature reserves between 2002 and 2009.
In Java, leopards inhabit dense tropical rainforests and dry deciduous forests at altitudes from sea level to 2,540 m (8,330 ft). Outside protected areas, leopards were recorded in mixed agricultural land, secondary forest and production forest between 2008 and 2014.
In the Russian Far East, it inhabits temperate coniferous forests where winter temperatures reach a low of −25 °C (−13 °F). Hunting & food
The leopard depends mainly on its acute senses of hearing and vision for hunting. It primarily hunts at night in most areas. In western African forests and Tsavo National Park, leopards have been also observed hunting by day. Leopards usually hunt on the ground. In the Serengeti, leopards have been observed to ambush prey by jumping down on it from trees.
The leopard is a carnivore that prefers medium-sized prey with a body mass ranging from 10–40 kg (22–88 lb). Prey species in this weight range tend to occur in dense habitat and to form small herds. Species that prefer open areas and developed significant anti-predator strategies are less preferred. More than 100 prey species were recorded. The most significantly preferred species are ungulates; impala, bushbuck, common duiker and chital. Primate species preyed upon include those of the genera Cercocebus, Cercopithecus and Semnopithecus. Analysis of leopard scat in Taï National Park revealed that primates, except for chimpanzee and potto, are primary leopard prey during the day. Leopards also kill smaller carnivores like black-backed jackal, bat-eared fox, genet and cheetah.
Prey as heavy as a 550 kg (1,210 lb) giraffe is hunted, especially in areas that lack larger carnivores such as lions or tigers since they do not need to drag prey up trees to retain it. In areas such as Sri Lanka, reserves in Central Asia and the Middle East and most of the montane and tropical rainforests of Africa, the leopard is the remaining top terrestrial predator present and often take varied prey of various sizes, including at times large ungulates weighing hundreds of kilograms, although they also takes smaller prey such as monkeys where ungulates are scarce. A study in Wolong National Nature Reserve in southern China demonstrated variation in the leopard's diet over time; over the course of seven years, the vegetative cover receded, and leopards opportunistically shifted from primarily consuming tufted deer to pursuing bamboo rats and other smaller prey. The largest prey killed by a leopard was reportedly a male eland weighing 900 kg (2,000 lb).
Average daily consumption rates of 3.5 kg (7 lb 11 oz) were estimated for males and of 2.8 kg (6 lb 3 oz) for females. A study in the southern Kalahari Desert showed that leopards meet their water requirements by the bodily fluids of prey and succulent plants; they drink water every two to three days, and feed infrequently on moisture-rich plants such as gemsbok cucumbers (Acanthosicyos naudinianus), tsamma melon (Citrullus lanatus) and Kalahari sour grass (Schmidtia kalahariensis).
The leopard stalks its prey and tries to approach as close as possible, typically within 5 m (16 ft) to the target, and finally pounces on it and kills it by suffocation. It kills small prey with a bite on the back of the neck, but holds larger animals by the throat and strangles them. It is able to take large prey due to its massive skull and powerful jaw muscles, and is therefore strong enough to drag carcasses heavier than itself up into trees; an individual was seen to haul a young giraffe, weighing nearly 125 kg (276 lb), up 5.7 m (18 ft 8 in) into a tree. Kills are cached up to 2 km (1 1⁄4 mi) apart. Small prey is eaten immediately, while larger carcasses are dragged over several hundred metres and safely cached in trees, bushes or even caves to be consumed later. The way the kill is stored depends on local topography and individual preferences; while trees are preferred in Kruger National Park, bushes are preferred in the plain terrain of the Kalahari. Reproduction
Depending on the region, leopards may mate all year round. In Manchuria and Siberia, they mate during January and February. The estrous cycle lasts about 46 days and the female usually is in heat for 6–7 days. Gestation lasts for 90 to 105 days. Cubs are usually born in a litter of 2–4 cubs. Mortality of cubs is estimated at 41–50% during the first year.
Females give birth in a cave, crevice among boulders, hollow tree, or thicket to make a den. Cubs are born with closed eyes, which open four to nine days after birth. The fur of the young tends to be longer and thicker than that of adults. Their pelage is also more gray in colour with less defined spots. Around three months of age, the young begin to follow the mother on hunts. At one year of age, leopard young can probably fend for themselves, but remain with the mother for 18–24 months.
The average typical life span of a leopard is between 12 and 17 years. The oldest recorded spotted leopard was a female named Roxanne living in captivity at McCarthy's Wildlife Sanctuary in The Acreage, Palm Beach County, Florida. She died August 8, 2014 at the age of 24 years, 2 months and 13 days. This has been verified by the Guinness Book of World Records.[145] Previously, the oldest recorded leopard was a female named Bertie living in captivity in the Warsaw Zoo. She died in December 2010 at the age of 24. The oldest recorded male leopard was Cezar, who reached the age of 23. He also lived at the Warsaw Zoo and was Bertie's lifelong companion. The generation length of the leopard is 9.3 years.