(02-21-2023, 01:01 AM)Ashutosh Wrote: @Luipaard, just for some context, that Panna tigress has very young cubs (2 month olds). She didn’t want to risk any injury hence didn’t engage with the leopard. In other such instances, skirmish is inevitable.

(02-21-2023, 08:18 PM)Pckts Wrote: It’s always funny to hear people claim Leopards to be Tigress sized. Here’s a perfect example of the differences between a tigress and male leopard. With regards to the encounter, the leopard is strictly defensive and nothing more.

(02-21-2023, 10:26 PM)Luipaard Wrote:

(02-21-2023, 08:18 PM)Pckts Wrote: It’s always funny to hear people claim Leopards to be Tigress sized. Here’s a perfect example of the differences between a tigress and male leopard. With regards to the encounter, the leopard is strictly defensive and nothing more.

Just because extremely large male leopards can be tigress/lioness-sized doesn't mean every male leopard is. I don't know why you're basing this off a random interaction in Panna National Park. I doubt that an Indian leopard would grow to such an extent when data shows they struggle hard to reach 80kg plus there's no reason to approach such sizes when competing with larger predators. I shouldn't tell you this because you know this very well.

Dr. Mohammad Farhadinia was one of the authors of a newsletter where measurements were given of one of the largest Persian leopard skulls. They concluded the individual was as large as an adult female tiger that once roamed in Golestan National Park which means they were talking about a Caspian tigress (weight range 85-135kg). Now I know your logic by now, you'll assume they were saying the leopard basically weighed 85kg so it was as big as a small Caspian tiger but I doubt that since Caspian tigresses' minimum skull length was 268 mm compared to the 281 mm long Persian leopard skull in this case. 

Measurements of 16 Bengal tiger skulls:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Minimum skull length: 280 mm
Minimum skull width: 177 mm

For leopards (overall):
Maximum skull length: 282 mm
Maximum skull width: 191 mm

This is excluding the biggest leopard skull ever with a condylobasal length of 264 mm (compared to the minimum condylobasal length of 255 mm in this tiger sample). I'm not into tiger skull data so it's possible there are even smaller Bengal tiger skulls.

By the way, nobody here said anything about 'tigress-sized' leopards except for you. Pantherine AKA Balam too was recently spreading nonsense of people saying leopards (as in general) are tigress-sized when in reality it's about the biggest male leopards out there. What a coincidence right?

But yes there are male leopards who have the right to be called tigress/lioness-sized and data supports this. Perhaps you should tell Dr. Mohammad Farhadinia how funny it is what he said about that large Persian leopard skull?