leopard

The leopard has exceptionally acute hearing, together with good sight and sense of smell. Leopards are agile and have been known to leap from trees on to prey. They climb well, often dragging prey high into trees for safety.

A leopard with an impala kill in South Africa. Leopards are good climbers and often drag their prey high into trees for safety.

Large wild cat found in Africa and Asia. The background colour of the coat is golden, and the black spots form rosettes that differ according to the variety; black panthers are simply a colour variation and retain the patterning as a ‘watered-silk’ effect. The leopard is 1.5–2.5 m/5–8 ft long, including the tail, which may measure 1 m/3 ft. (Species Panthera pardus, family Felidae.)

The snow leopard or ounce (Panthera uncia), which has irregular rosettes of much larger black spots on a light cream or grey background, is a native of mountains in central Asia. The clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) is rather smaller, about 1.75 m/5.8 ft overall, with large blotchy markings rather than rosettes, and is found in Southeast Asia. There are seven subspecies, of which six are in danger of extinction, including the Amur leopard and the South Arabian leopard. One subspecies, the Zanzibar leopard, may already be extinct. The last Judean desert leopard died May 1995, although a small population survives in the Negev Desert.