Persian Leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor)

[Styx38]

Leopard in camera-trapped in The Republic of Dagestan.

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https://wwf.ru/en/resources/news/kavkaz/...dagestane/ Reply

[Lycaon]

Good sized male.

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[Pckts]

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[Luipaard]

Hefty male in the Hyrcanian forests of northern Iran

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https://www.instagram.com/p/Cnhj_yvhHgf/ Reply

[Luipaard]

New footage of the Persian leopard in Turkey:

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This male has an impressive physique:

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[Luipaard]

Male from Golestan National Park, Iran

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reza_nikfalak Reply

[LeoMan]

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I want to share these 2 pictures i have taken myself of an adult male Persian Leopard, the specimen is at least 7-8 years old but he can also be much older. Some interesting things i can share about the leopard:

1° Colour

This specific leopard resembles much more the pale-white fur of Snow Leopards than the usual coating of African-Indian populations. Also the underside fur on the throat, chest, belly, tail is much longer than African-Indian Leopards and and gives some Amur Leopard winter coat "vibes".
Also the tail looks very fluffly and girthy, contributing to the general impression of an animal living in colder climates.
(This is not due to his location in captivity, Rome, which is much hotter than his original habitat in North Iran)

2° Condition

Despite being an elderly animal living in captivity i found the Leopard in really good form. The animal seemed very muscular for a captive specimen, surely not obese. I can't really judge if the animal carried some extra weight (let's say a bit overweight) but i think that would be still acceptable and normal for an animal his age who lived in captivity all his life.

3° Size

I was really astonished when i saw the leopard, i couldn't really believe my eyes for at least a minute. In complete honesty i will say that this is the only leopard i have seen in real life. But i have seen countless images, videos, articles, documentaries about all leopard subspecies and over the years i trained myself to make estimates and comparisons with body proportions and size of all kind of animals. And i can safely say i would not have believed a leopard could be that big.
Certainly the longer-than-average fur contributes to the overall impression of big size, but there is much much more than that.

4° My guess


Maybe i am about to make a big claim, i m aware of that, but i will say Leopards don't really get much bigger than this specimen.
I didn't have the opportunity to ask the staff of the park informations about the leopard, but i have been lucky to observe him at a very close distance for quite some time.
Shoulder height i would say he is in the range 65-70cm, and i am leaning more towards 70.
Body lenght is very impressive, the animal is insanely long. I would say in the range 140-150 cm, actually 145 cm could be a fair guess.
Overall lenght i can't really say because the fluffy tail is tricky to visualize. Maybe its just too simple approach but if the tail is half the lenght of the head-boady (72,5-75cm) with get an overall lenght of 220cm, which seems reasonable to me.

In the weight department i will start saying the animal is quite muscular and robust, the exact opposite of many lean and slim leopards all over the world. If we take his body dimensions together with his stocky appearance, the leopard probably weights at least 70 kg and maybe even 75-80kg.

5° Conclusion


The experience watching the leopard made me think about the problem animal enthusiasts face when they re looking for the biggest specimens of certain animal species. Sometimes scientific research can give a good answer to such question but many times this is not the case and animal enthusiasts must rely on all kind of sources, news and articles from social medias, private organizations, hunting reports written in hunting books and many other different sources. 
And many times animal enthusiasts are willing to accept the latest claims about record specimens because they would like their favourite animals to be as large and powerful as possible and i can understand this feeling and i surely dont blame anyone.
But the reality is in todays world where large predators are few and far between, their numbers just a mere shadow of the past, it s very rare almost impossible to find these outliers, record specimens.
When it comes to leopard subspecies, from the data available, large adult males of the largest populations (in terms of size, not numbers of individuals) are 60 kg animals.

When i saw the Leopard i really felt to be in front of a very large and rare specimen. One of the outliers. And when i tried to compare it with the available data i discovered that yes, the leopard was a big one, but nothing out of the limits known to scientific research. And at the same time i really felt that i ve never seen a bigger leopard in thousands of online material. So i concluded that there is a maximum size leopards  can reach and the maximum size is more or less what we already know from the actual data.

I don't want to say that every 90-100 kg leopard ever reported is fake information and shouldn't be trusted, but i want to say such a leopard, if really exists, must be regarded as an exceptional outlier and probably in race for the biggest leopard actually alive spot.

So when we think about a really large male leopard, the biggest specimens from the largest population, we are thinking about an animal like the one in the pictures above, a 70-80kg freak of a leopard. Reply

[Styx38]

(02-08-2022, 01:02 AM)Pckts Wrote:

(02-08-2022, 12:18 AM)Luipaard Wrote: @Pckts 

Really? They don't look anything special? Are you telling me they're average-sized? Also the one you posted is Borna/M3 and was longer than a 75kg and he wasn't even fully mature. Also keep in mind they said he was at least 70kg. This is what they said about him on their website:

Quote:He was the largest leopard we investigated there and was famous among visitors to the park due to the stunning pictures so many were able to take of him.

It's the same source where you got the 70kg claim from (although you didn't notice the "at least" part) plus that same source stated males are generally around 67kg. Meanwhile they caught a 75kg male as well so it's impossible for him to be 70kg since Borna/M3 was the largest according to them.

Furthermore the ones LoveAnimals posted are 99% bigger. The second one with the wild boar kill originates from the same place as Borna/M3 and 75kg male M4 (Tandoureh National Park) so if I were to be conservative, i'd say he's similar in size. However, I think he's bigger since the wild boar kill gives perspective (it's clearly an adult wild boar and they're large in Iran).

The second one originates from the Hyrcanian forest in Northern Iran and here you find the absolute biggest Persian males. The biggest Persian skulls originate from this part of Iran, same goes for weight data. While we can't tell his measurements (height, etc), you can clearly see it's a juggernaut of a leopard. A very bulky male.

@GuateGojira 

Here are links of the leopards LoveAnimals posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjtGMa-hy_k
https://imgur.com/gallery/uXtaU6Q

Anyway, I agree and disagree at the same time with you regarding this:

Quote:there are very few leopards over 90 kg, most are about 50 - 70 kg, depending of the population.

While generally true, +90kg males are more commonly found in parts where leopards grew very big such as Iran. Remember the study Patterns of sexual dimorphism in the Persian Leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor) and implications for sex differentiation (2014) where they gathered weights across the whole country of Iran (= most randomly selection there is). Out of 22 males, 4 males weighed more than 90kg which is almost one out of five. On average yes most males will weigh between 50kg-70kg.

Yeah, considering that is exactly what I wrote.
Neither specimen looks to be anything special to me. 

In regards to the male I posted "M3", we all know the measurements claim was over the curves as well as him being between 4-6 years old in 2015 not to mention him having a longer BL than M2 or M1. He's a good sized male and said to be 70kg
Bickering over it saying "at least 70kg" means nothing, 70/75kg does it really matter? He's not near 100kg and looks more impressive to me than either of the Leopards posted. Not to mention if you're saying one comes from the same place and they said M3 was the largest in that region, how can you say the other is more impressive? 



Lastly, the study you quote didn't measure any of their own cats specific to that study, it's just a collection of data. The idea that 1/5 Leopards measured reached more than 90kg is misleading. Not to mention Mohammad Farhadinia specifically states that males in the North in their prime weigh around 70kg and Kambiz states the largest male he knows of was 88kg from the Caspian Hyrcanian to go along with the amputated leopard. Farhadinia also states the heaviest males were all under 90kg, between 75-88kg.
Not to mention, if you're speaking about this table?

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There are 25 males listed not including the amputated male and only 3 are within the 90-95 range.
The study mentioned only lists 21 so they probably excluded a male or two from the above table but since it's max is only 91kg's it's very possible that only 1 male reached 91kg and all others fell under that weight.

If anybody wants an update, Borna was confirmed to be 82 kg.

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[Lycaon]

Pretty impressive turkish leopard.

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Source : https://www.trthaber.com/haber/yasam/anadolu-parsi-fotokapanla-goruntulendi-794004.html Reply

[TheHyenid76]

Incredible footage of wild leopards in Iraq. Hana Raza is an Iraqi conservationist who is working tirelessly to conserve fauna & biodiversity of the Iraqi Kurdistan. Her instagram & Google Scholar profiles. 
First photographic record of the Persian leopard in Kurdistan, northern Iraq

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