Rainforest Leopards

[Jubatus]

The Congo Basin Leopards (Part.1, Diet)

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I`m going to some posts on the Congo Basin Leopards, These Leopards are some of the worlds most extraordinary subspecies of Leopards. Some Congo Basin Leopards looks to be amongst the biggest in the world like the Leopard in the picture above, that`s from Gabon. And there are many stories of them killing both gorillas and chimps!

Diet 
These Leopards have a great diet and can survive on almost everything they can find. In a survey done in Gabon they collected a total of 84 leopard scats in four different areas to pinpoint their diet. From the scats they found remains of 93 different prey species. The Average weight of the prey varied between 19.8-31.6 kgs. Their diet is highly dominated by Ungulates, depending on the area their diet consists of 67.2-90.6 % Ungulates. In areas closer to people Leopards had to hunt smaller prey like rodents and birds far more often then the other areas. Because all the suitable prey like Duikers and Primates are hunted for their meat. In one area Red forest duiker is what the Leopards favourised, followed by Brush-Tailed porcupine. On two other areas Red River Hogs were strongly favourised, and consisted of almost 50 % of the Leopards Diet. 
Here are the prey species list:

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Notice that both Gorilla, Mandrill, Forest Bufflo and Chimps are on the List. In site 3 primates were far more hunted than the other sites. 
Here are the estimated mean weights of the prey animals when they were alive:

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I was quite impressed to find out that these Leopards could kill such big Buffalos, I think that`s very impressive! Reply