Leopard

The leopard is one of the five living cat species in the genus Panthera, with pale yellowish to dark golden fur marked by dark spots grouped in rosettes. It ranges widely across Africa and Asia in habitats from rainforest to steppe, including arid and montane areas. An opportunistic predator, it hunts mostly ungulates and primates, using its spotted pattern as camouflage while it stalks and ambushes, and it sometimes drags its prey up a tree. Leopards are solitary outside the mating season and when raising cubs. Females usually give birth to a litter of two to four cubs once every 15 to 24 months. Leopards once lived across Europe but died out there around the end of the Late Pleistocene.

About the leopard

The leopard (Panthera pardus) is a big cat and one of five living species in the genus Panthera, alongside the lion, tiger, jaguar and snow leopard. It has the widest distribution of any wild cat, ranging across Africa and Asia, and is a solitary, spotted ambush predator able to live in rainforest, savanna, mountains and desert.

Its closest relatives are the lion and the jaguar, which together form a clade the leopard sits beside. Genetic estimates put the leopard's split from other Panthera cats at about 4.35 million years ago. The oldest unambiguous leopard fossils come from East Africa and are about 2 million years old. Leopards later spread into Eurasia, and once lived across Europe until the end of the last Ice Age. Eight subspecies are currently recognized, among them the Amur leopard, P. p. orientalis.

The leopard is a slender, muscular cat with relatively short legs and a broad head. Males stand 60–70 cm (24–28 in) at the shoulder and females 57–64 cm (22–25 in). Head-and-body length runs 92–183 cm (36–72 in), plus a white-tipped tail of 66–102 cm (26–40 in). Males usually weigh 30.9–72 kg (68–159 lb) and occasionally reach 91 kg (201 lb); females weigh 20.5–43 kg (45–95 lb). Leopards from South Africa's Cape Province are much smaller, with males at only 20–45 kg (44–99 lb).

The coat is soft and thick, pale yellowish to dark golden, with dark spots grouped into rosettes. Every leopard's rosette pattern is unique. Desert leopards tend to be pale cream to ochre, while forest and mountain animals are darker and deep golden, and fur grows grayer and longer in cold climates. Rosettes are round in East Africa, squarish in southern Africa and larger in Asia. A jaguar's rosettes, by comparison, are darker and have small spots inside them.

"Black panthers" are melanistic leopards, a color caused by a recessive gene. Rare pale leopards have been reported from India, and a reddish "strawberry leopard" form has been recorded in South Africa.

Behavior and diet

Leopards are solitary and territorial, and adults associate only to mate. They are mainly active from dusk to dawn, resting through the day in thickets, among rocks or along tree branches. At night they may walk up to 25 km (16 mi), or as far as 75 km (47 mi) if disturbed. In West African forests they are largely active by day and hunt at twilight, following their prey's schedule.

They are excellent climbers that often rest on branches and come down headfirst. A leopard can run at over 58 km/h (36 mph), leap more than 6 m (20 ft) horizontally and jump 3 m (9.8 ft) straight up. Its best-known call is a "sawing" roar of deep, repeated strokes, probably used to hold territory and attract mates.

The leopard is an opportunistic carnivore that prefers prey weighing 10–40 kg (22–88 lb). More than 100 prey species have been recorded, led by hoofed animals such as impala, bushbuck, common duiker and chital. It also takes monkeys and langurs, smaller carnivores including jackals and cheetahs, and, near towns, domestic dogs. The largest reported kill was a male eland of about 900 kg (2,000 lb).

Hunting relies on sharp hearing and eyesight. A leopard stalks to within about 5 m (16 ft) before pouncing, kills small prey with a bite to the back of the neck and strangles larger animals by the throat. Its powerful jaws let it drag carcasses heavier than itself into trees; one was seen hauling a young giraffe of nearly 125 kg (276 lb) 5.7 m (18 ft 8 in) up a tree. Storing kills in trees keeps them away from hyenas, which steal up to half of lost leopard kills in one South African reserve. Males eat an estimated 3.5 kg (7.7 lb) a day and females 2.8 kg (6.2 lb).

Females give birth in caves, rock crevices, hollow trees or thickets. Newborn cubs weigh 280–1,000 g (9.9–35.3 oz) and open their eyes after four to nine days. They start eating meat at around nine weeks, follow their mother on hunts at three months, and stay with her for 18–24 months. Between 41 and 50% of cubs die in their first year, mostly to predators.

Range and habitat

The leopard is the most widespread wild cat, but its range is fragmented and shrinking. Recent records place it in only about 25% of its historical range. Its range in West Africa is estimated to have fallen by 95%, and in the Sahara by 97%. In sub-Saharan Africa it remains common in marginal areas where other big cats have disappeared.

In Asia it occurs from southern Anatolia and small, scattered Arabian populations through Pakistan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka to Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia, southern China and Java. India's forested tiger landscapes held an estimated 12,172 to 13,535 leopards as of 2020. In the Russian Far East leopards live in temperate conifer forest where winter lows reach −25 °C (−13 °F), and in Nepal one was photographed at 4,300 m (14,100 ft).

Leopards tolerate some human disturbance. Where it is not persecuted and has enough prey and patches of vegetation for shelter, the leopard can even live in urban environments, though without healthy prey and hunting cover it rarely lingers in developed areas. In Sri Lanka they have been recorded on tea estates, in home gardens and in pine and eucalyptus plantations, and in urban areas domestic dogs can be an important food. Their stealth means people often don't know one lives nearby. Home ranges depend on prey: males in the Serengeti use 33–38 km² (13–15 sq mi), while males in northeastern Namibia range over 451 km² (174 sq mi).

Leopards share their habitat with larger competitors. In Africa, lions, hyenas and African wild dogs can dominate them, and lions cause up to 22% of leopard deaths in one reserve. In Asia, tigers and dholes push leopards toward forest edges. Leopards cope by hunting different-sized prey and using thick vegetation.

Conservation status

The leopard is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, with populations declining across large parts of its range. The chief threats are habitat fragmentation and the conversion of forest to farmland, which shrink the prey base and bring leopards into conflict with livestock herders. Trophy hunting and poaching add to the losses.

The skin and bone trade is a serious problem. Between 2002 and 2012, an estimated four or more leopards a week were poached in India. Surveys in Moroccan markets found dozens of skins imported from sub-Saharan Africa, and in Java, parts from 51 leopards were seized between 2011 and 2019.

The species is listed on CITES Appendix I. Hunting is banned in Botswana and Afghanistan, while 11 sub-Saharan countries limit trade to the skins and parts of a set quota of 2,560 animals. In the Russian Caucasus, a reintroduction program begun in 2007 trains captive-bred leopards before release, and six animals released in 2018 were still alive in February 2022.