Leopard
| Leopard | ||||||||||||||
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 African Leopard in Serengeti, Tanzania
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| Panthera pardus Linnaeus, 1758 | ||||||||||||||
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The leopard (Panthera pardus) is an Old World mammal of the Felidae family and one of the four "big cats' in the Panthera genus, along with the tiger (P. tigris), the lion (P. leo) and the jaguar (P. onca). The leopard is the fourth-largest of these, after the tiger, lion, and jaguar.
Once distributed across southern Eurasia and Africa from Korea to South Africa and Spain, it has disappeared from much of its former range and now chiefly occurs in subsaharan Africa, as well as fragmented populations in India, Indochina, Malaysia and western China. Leopards which are melanistic, either all-black or very dark in coloration, are known as Black Panthers.
This spotted cat most closely resembles the jaguar physically, although it is of lighter build. Males can grow to weigh 91 kg (200 lb) and the females can weigh 60 kg (132 lb). However, in parts of their range where larger cats (i.e. the Lion in Africa and the Tiger in Asia) are absent, leopards may grow considerably larger. Certain subspecies, such as the now possibly extinct Anatolian Leopard, were known to reach almost jaguar sized proportions at times.
Etymology
Originally, it was thought that a leopard was a hybrid between a lion and a panther, and the leopard's common name derives from this belief; leo is the Greek and Latin word for lion (Greek leon, λέων) and pard is an old term meaning panther. In fact, a "panther" can be any of several species of large felid. In North America, panther means cougar and in South America a panther is a jaguar. Elsewhere in the world a panther is a leopard. Early naturalists distinguished between leopards and panthers not by colour (a common misconception), but by the length of the tail — panthers having longer tails than leopards. It was one of the many species originally described, as Felis pardus, by Linnaeus in his 18th century work, Systema Naturae.[2]
The generic component of its scientific designation, Panthera pardus, is often presumed to derive from Greek pan- ("all") and ther ("beast"), but this may be a folk etymology. Although it came into English through the classical languages, panthera is probably of East Asian origin, meaning "the yellowish animal," or "whitish-yellow".[3]
Description
Although it is common for a leopard to be mistaken for a cheetah due to their spots, they can actually be easily distinguished. The leopard has a heavier, stockier body and has a larger head in proportion to its body, and has rosettes rather than dots. Leopards also lack the black "tear-streak" markings that run from the inner corners of the cheetah's eyes to the corners of its mouth. Additionally, cheetahs run much faster than leopards do and generally do not climb trees, whereas leopards are excellent climbers. Also, leopards are more active at night searching for their prey (nocturnal), whereas cheetahs are usually diurnal.
Black Panthers
Particularly in mountainous areas and rain forests occurs a melanistic morph of the leopard, the black panther. The black colour is heritable and caused by only one recessive gene locus. In some regions, for example on the Malayan Peninsula up to 50% of all leopards are black. In Africa black leopards seem to be most common in the Ethiopian Highlands.
Behavior
Leopards are infamous for their ability to go undetected. They sometimes live practically among humans and are usually still tough to spot. They are graceful and stealthy. Among the big cats they are probably the most accomplished stalkers. They are good, agile climbers, but can not get down from a tree headfirst, because they do not have the ankle flexibility — the only two cats that do are the Margay and the Clouded Leopard.
Along with climbing, they are strong swimmers but not as fond of water as tigers; for example, leopards will not normally lie in water. They are mainly nocturnal but can be seen at any time of day and will even hunt during daytime on overcast days. In regions where they are hunted, nocturnal behaviour is more common. These cats are solitary, avoiding one another. However, 3 or 4 are sometimes seen together. Hearing and eyesight are the strongest of these cats' senses and are extremely acute. Olfaction is relied upon as well, but not for hunting. When making a threat, leopards stretch their backs, depress their ribcages between their shoulder blades so they stick out, and lower their heads (similar to domestic cats). During the day they may lie in bush, on rocks, or in a tree with their tails hanging below the treetops and giving them away.
Diet and hunting
Leopards are truly opportunistic hunters. They will eat just about any animal. Their diet consists mostly of ungulates and monkeys, but rodents, reptiles, amphibians, birds, fish, are also eaten. In fact, they hunt about 90 different species of animals. A solitary dog, itself a formidable predator, is a potential prey for leopards, although a pack of dogs can tree or drive off a leopard. In Africa, mid-sized antelopes provide a majority of the leopard's prey, especially Impala and Thomson's gazelles. Leopards are known to take animals up to the size of an adult eland [4]. In Asia the leopard preys on deer such as chitals and muntjacs as well as various Asian antelopes and Ibex. It stalks its prey silently and at the last minute pounces on its prey and strangles its throat with a quick bite. Leopards are capable of carrying animals up to three times their own weight into the trees.
Because of their wide range, leopards face competition with a variety of other predators notably lions, tigers, hyenas and various species of wild dogs. Leopards avoid direct competition by hunting at different times of the day and avoiding areas frequented by them. Also in areas with large numbers of large predators, they typically store their kills out of reach in trees. Contrary to popular belief however, leopards don't always store their food in trees. Many if not most kills are dragged and hidden in dense vegetation.
Although most leopards will tend to avoid humans, people are occasionally targeted as prey. Most healthy leopards prefer wild prey to humans, but cats who are injured, sickly or struggling with a shortage of regular prey often turn to hunting people and may become habituated to it. In the most extreme cases, both in India, a leopard dubbed "the Leopard of Rudraprayag" is claimed to have killed over 125 people and the infamous leopardess called "Panar Leopard" killed over 400 after being injured by a poacher and thus being made unable to hunt normal prey. The "Leopard of Rudraprayag" and the "Panar Leopard" were both killed by the legendary hunter Jim Corbett. Man-eating leopards are considered bold and commonly enter human settlements for prey, moreso than their lion and tiger counterparts. However 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.
Reproduction
A male may follow a female who catches his attention. Eventually fighting for reproductive rights can take place. Depending on the region, leopards may mate all year round (India 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 6–7 days. Cubs are usually born in a litter of 2–3, but infant mortality is high and mothers are not commonly seen with more than 1–2 cubs. The pregnant females find a cave, crevice among boulders, hollow tree, or thicket to give birth and make a den. Cubs open their eyes after a period of 10 days. The fur of the young tends to be longer and thicker than that of adults. Their pelage is also more gray in color with less defined spots. Around 3 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 18–24 months.
Taxonomy
Subspecies
It has been suggested that there may be as many as 30 extant subspecies of the Leopard. However, modern taxonomic analyses have demonstrated that only 8/9 subspecies are valid.[5][6]
- Indo-Chinese Leopard (Panthera pardus delacouri), Mainland Southeast Asia
- Indian Leopard (Panthera pardus fusca), India, South eastern Pakistan, Nepal
- North China Leopard (Panthera pardus japonensis), China
- Sri Lanka Leopard (Panthera pardus kotiya), Sri Lanka
- Java Leopard (Panthera pardus melas), Java
- Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis), Russian Far East, Northern China, Korea
- African Leopard (Panthera pardus pardus), Africa
- Persian Leopard or Iranian leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor), Southwest Asia
- Arabian Leopard (Panthera pardus nimr), Arabian Peninsula; Often included in the Persian Leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor)
Other subspecies under the old taxonomic division:
Today usually included in the African Leopard (Panthera pardus pardus):
- Barbary Leopard (Panthera pardus panthera)
- Cape Leopard (Panthera pardus melanotica)
- Central African Leopard (Panthera pardus shortridgei)
- Congo Leopard (Panthera pardus ituriensis)
- East African Leopard (Panthera pardus suahelica)
- Eritrean Leopard (Panthera pardus antinorii)
- Somalian Leopard (Panthera pardus nanopardus)
- Ugandan Leopard ((Panthera pardus chui)
- West African Leopard (Panthera pardus reichinowi)
- West African Forest Leopard (Panthera pardus leopardus)
- Zanzibar Leopard (Panthera pardus adersi)
Today usually included in The Persian Leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor):
- Anatolian Leopard (Panthera pardus tulliana)
- Baluchistan Leopard (Panthera pardus sindica)
- Caucasus Leopard (Panthera pardus ciscaucasica)
- Central Persian Leopard (Panthera pardus dathei)
- Sinai Leopard (Panthera pardus jarvisi)
Today usually included in The Indian Leopard (Panthera pardus fusca)
- Kashmir Leopard (Panthera pardus millardi)
- Nepal Leopard (Panthera pardus pernigra)
Prehistoric extinct subspecies
- European leopard (Panthera pardus sickenbergi) (†)
Some cats are called leopards, but they belong to other species:
- Clouded Leopard, Neofelis nebulosa
- Bornean Clouded Leopard, Neofelis diardi
- Snow Leopard, Uncia uncia
King Leopard
A pseudo-melanistic leopard has a normal background colour, but its excessive markings have coalesced so that its back seems to be an unbroken expanse of black. In some specimens, the area of solid black extends down the flanks and limbs; only a few lateral streaks of golden-brown indicate the presence of normal background colour. Any spots on the flanks and limbs that have not merged into the mass of swirls and stripes are unusually small and discrete, rather than forming rosettes. The face and underparts are paler and dappled like those of ordinary spotted leopards.
In a paper about panthers and ounces of Asia, Reginald Innes Pocock used a photo of a leopard skin from southern India; it had large black-rimmed blotches, each containing a number of dots and it resembled the pattern of a jaguar or clouded leopard. Another of Pocock's leopard skins from southern India had the normal rosettes broken up and fused and so much additional pigment that the animal looked like a black leopard streaked and speckled with yellow.
Most other colour morphs of leopards are known only from paintings or museum specimens. 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. Pseudo-melanism (abundism) occurs in leopards. The spots are more densely packed than normal and merge to largely obscure the background colour. 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).
A 1910 description of a pseudo-melanistic leopard:
There is, however, a peculiar dark phase in South Africa, a specimen of which was obtained in 1885 in hilly land covered with scrub-jungle, near Grahamstown. The ground-colour of this animal was a rich tawny, with an orange tinge; but the spots, instead of being of the usual rosette-like form, were nearly all small and solid, like those on the head of an ordinary leopard; while from the top of the head to near the root of the tail the spots became almost confluent, producing the appearance of a broad streak of black running down the back. A second skin had the black area embracing nearly the whole of the back and flanks, without showing any trace of the spots, while in those portions of the skin where the latter remained they were of the same form as in the first specimen. Two other specimens are known; the whole four having been obtained from the Albany district. These dark-coloured South African leopards differ from the black leopards of the northern and eastern parts of Africa and Asia in that while in the latter the rosette-like spots are always retained and clearly visible, in the former the rosettes are lost – as, indeed, is to a considerable extent often the case in ordinary African leopards – and all trace of spots disappears from the blacker portions of the skin.
Lydekker, R. (1910), Harmsworth Natural History
Another pseudo-melanistic leopard skin was described in 1915 by Holdridge Ozro Collins who had purchased it in 1912. It had been killed in Malabar, India that same year.
The wide black portion, which glistens like the sheen of silk velvet, extends from the top of the head to the extremity of the tail entirely free from any white or tawny hairs … In the tiger, the stripes are black, of a uniform character, upon a tawny background, and they run in parallel lines from the centre of the back to the belly. In this skin, the stripes are almost golden yellow, without the uniformity and parallelism of the tiger characteristics, and they extend along the sides in labyrinthine graceful curls and circles, several inches below the wide shimmering black continuous course of the back. The extreme edges around the legs and belly are white and spotted like the skin of a leopard … The skin is larger than that of a leopard but smaller than that of a full grown tiger.
Collins, Holdridge Ozro(1915)
In May 1936, the British Natural History Museum exhibited the mounted skin of an unusual Somali leopard. The pelt was richly decorated with an intricate pattern of swirling stripes, blotches, curls and fine-line traceries. 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.
Leopards and humans
Leopards have been known to humans since antiquity and have featured in the art, mythology and folklore of many countries where they have occurred historically, such as Ancient Greece, Persia and Rome, as well as some where they haven't such as England. The modern use of the leopard as an emblem for sport or coat of arms is much more restricted to Africa, though numerous products worldwide have used the name.
Tourism
Despite its size, this largely nocturnal and arboreal predator is difficult to see in the wild.
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 Yala National Park in Sri Lanka, which has the world's highest density of wild leopards, but even here sightings are by no means guaranteed because more than half the park is closed off 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. In India the leopards are found all over the country and there is maximum man-animal conflict here only as they are spread everywhere.The best places in India can be national parks in Madhya Pradesh and in Uttarakhand.
Heraldry
The lion passant guardant or "leopard" is a frequently used charge in heraldry, most commonly appearing in groups of three. The heraldric leopard lacks spots and sports a mane, making it visually almost identical to the heraldric lion, and the two are often used interchangably. 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.
The Leopard Men
The Leopard men were a West African secret society who practised cannibalism. They were centred in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire.
Members would dress in leopard skins, waylaying travellers with sharp claw-like weapons in the form of leopards' claws and teeth. The victims' flesh would be cut from their bodies and distributed to members of the society. In theory the ritual cannibalism would strengthen both members of the society as well as their entire tribe.
Modern culture
Possibly the most famous cinematic leopard is the pet in the film Bringing Up Baby (1938) where its misadventures create madcap comedy for stars Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn; the movie is one of the American Film Institute's "100 Greatest (American) Films".
- In the 1999 Tarzan movie by Disney, a vicious leopard, Sabor, was Tarzan's natural and mortal enemy, although the Mangani name for leopards established in the books is "Sheeta".
- In Passion in the Desert (1997), a French soldier (played by British actor Ben Daniels) while lost in Egypt during Napoleon's Egyptian campaign stumbles upon a leopard and develops a strange relationship with the animal.[7]
Traditionally, the leopard is an uncommon name or mascot for sporting teams, though it has been used in several African soccer teams: the AFC Leopards, formed in 1964, are a soccer club based in Nairobi, Kenya, while the Black Leopards play in South Africa's Premier Soccer League, the Royal Leopards in Swaziland's Premier League, and the Golf Leopards in the Sierra Leone National Premier League. More recently, the leopard emblem has been a part of the English Basketball League since the 1990s with the Essex Leopards and later London Leopards. The New Zealand Rugby League has featured the Otahuhu Leopards and then the Tamaki Leopards.
The Nissan Leopard was a luxury sports car produced by Nissan in the 1980s.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- ↑ Cat Specialist Group 2002. [1]. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species., World Conservation Union. Retrieved on 12 May 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern
- ↑ (Latin) Linnaeus, C (1758). Systema naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Tomus I. Editio decima, reformata.. Holmiae. (Laurentii Salvii)., 824.
- ↑ "Panther". Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper. Retrieved 2007-07-05.
- ↑ http://www.profleeberger.com/taphonomymain.html
- ↑ Olga Uphyrkina et al. (November 2001). Phylogenetics, genome diversity and origin of modern leopard, Panthera pardus. Molecular Ecology, Volume 10, Issue 11, Page 2617. Abstract
- ↑ Sriyanie Miththapala. (August 1996). Phylogeographic Subspecies Recognition in Leopards (Panthera pardus): Molecular Genetic Variation. Conservation Biology, Volume 10, Issue 4, Page 1115. Abstract
- ↑ Passion in the Desert (1997) at the Internet Movie Database
- Allsen, Thomas T. (2006). "Natural History and Cultural History: The Circulation of Hunting Leopards in Eurasia, Seventh-Seventeenth Centuries." In: Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World. Ed. Victor H. Mair. University of Hawai'i Press. Pp. 116-135. ISBN-13: ISBN 978-0-8248-2884-4; ISBN-10: ISBN 0-8248-2884-4
- Khalaf-von Jaffa, Norman Ali Bassam Ali Taher (2005). The Arabian Leopard (Panthera pardus nimr). Gazelle: The Palestinian Biological Bulletin. Number 42, June 2005. pp. 1-8. (in German).
- Khalaf-Sakerfalke von Jaffa, Norman Ali Bassam Ali Taher (2006). The Chinese Leopard (Panthera pardus japonensis, Gray 1862) in Neunkirchen Zoo, Neunkirchen, Saarland, Germany. Gazelle: The Palestinian Biological Bulletin. Number 60, December 2006. pp. 1-10.
- Leopards and spots on ears and tail [2]
- DeRuiter, D.J. and Berger, L.R. (2000) Leopards as Taphonomic Agents in dolomitic Caves - Implications for bone Accumulations in the Hominid-bearing Deposits of South Africa. J. Arch. Sci. 27, 665-684.
External links
- Pictures and Information on Leopards
- South African Leopard and Predator Conservation
- Leopard: Wildlife summary from the African Wildlife Foundation
- African leopard
- The Nature Conservatory's Species Profile: Leopard
- Images and movies of the South Arabian leopard (Panthera pardus nimr) from ARKive
- Images and movies of the Sri Lankan leopard (Panthera pardus kotiya) from ARKive
- The Cat Survival Trust: Leopard
- The Cyber Zoomobile: Leopard
- Catfolk Species Account: Leopard
- Saving the Amur Leopard
- Leopards of Sabi Sand Game Reserve
- BBC News: Clouded leopards found on Sumatra and Borneo
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