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Mating Behaviour - Data, Videos and Pics

sanjay Offline
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#1
( This post was last modified: 04-13-2017, 07:00 PM by Ngala )

Watch this great video of male and female Siberian leopard. The camera for the FIRST time recorded the marital games of far eastern leopards in the wild, with the leading role belonging to the young leopardess Bury flirting with Meamur. See the tiger at the end.



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Argentina Tshokwane Away
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#2

I've been putting this off for a while, but I'm very interested in this.

What I want to do with this thread is use it to show the different strategies the big cats use to mate, to lure their mates to accept them.

I'm mostly interested in the big four, Tigers, Lions, Jaguars and Leopards but you're free to post about other felines if you want to.
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Italy Ngala Offline
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( This post was last modified: 07-23-2016, 02:23 PM by Ngala )

I think that this sighting is adapt to this thread, also if there is a refusal.

From Kirkman's Kamp Private Game Reserve:
Interesting Leopard Behaviour
Over the past few months we have been noticing this intriguing interaction between the Nzdilo female and the dominate West Street Male. Look at how the dominate male starts to growl at the young female and then, interestingly, pushes her away when she tries to initiate mating...
We spoke to Panthera's Guy Balme, Leopard Program Director in South Africa, about this behaviour. We believe that it could be due to the dominate male recognising that the young female has the potential to be an unsuccessful mating partner because she is still to young. Therefore he doesn't want to waste the energy that could be used else where like hunting or patrolling his territory.



Video taken by Messham Photography.
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#4

It fits perfectly @Ngala . Thanks for posting it.

I had a lot of data from Mala Mala I wanted to post to this thread, but as they changed their blog, it's no longer there, so now I'll have to find it one by one, if it's still there.

But the sighting you posted is exactly what I meant.
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From Londolozi, Is Love Really In The Air?: by Nick Kleer.
It took me a long time to see leopards mating for the first time and it wasn’t until early last year that I got to witness this rare moment for the first time…


Over the past year or so I have been lucky enough to witness these moments a few more times and have started to notice something that I find rather interesting. There seems to have been a a slight pattern that has started to emerge. From what we have been seeing it seems like there are “peaks” in mating periods, with a number of pairs or trios of leopards seen mating all around the same time. It seems as though when a pair is seen that within a day or two, there will be another set of leopards mating somewhere nearby. Coincidence? Perhaps, or is there more to it?

Is there a possibility that female oestrus cycles are in sync with each other in close proximity? Is there uncertainty of dominance with the male leopards in the area? Is it down to competition between females? Or is the drought just providing an ideal situation for breeding with prey becoming slightly easier to catch with a fall in condition? These are a couple of questions that have been running through my mind while observing these fascinating creatures recently.

Leopards, like most cats, need to begin mating to induce ovulation. Because of this reason the female has to actively seek out the dominant male of the area when she is oestrus (the period in which her hormones are at their peak). In this state she will be able to release an egg but needs the male to mate with over a couple of days for the egg to be first released and then fertilized. She will mark her territory during this time with urine, which if smelled by the male, will let him know that she is in oestrus, and he will most likely attempt to track her down and the mating can commence…

So the question I have been wondering is, when leopards are in close proximity to each other, are the cycles of these females running a similar course as is similar in a few other mammal species? According to a study done by the Centre for Species Survival, Department of Reproductive Sciences, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park, Clouded leopards, fishing cats and margays frequently have spontaneous and simultaneous ovulations. Recently (perhaps because of the drought) there have been a number of leopards congregating around the Sand River, as are a lot of other species. This has put a number of females in very close proximity of each other, in an already healthy population concentration. Now could this cause the females to come into oestrus on the same cycle just as humans cycles have been known to sync up? Perhaps it is just competition and if one female is mating then the neighbouring female feels she need to do the same to try help secure her territory. Perhaps the scent of another female being in oestrus triggers the next to go into her cycle? Perhaps the fact that a few males territories overlap on our property may have something to do with it? These are all just thoughts and observations and would all make sense if we look at a few examples over the past couple of months. There has also been evidence of the Mashaba female perhaps securing future cubs by mating with 2 different males on the same day.

MAY

16/05 –  The Inyathini male and Tamboti young female with Piva also in the area.

19/05 – The Nanga female and the Anderson male.

23/05 The Inyathini male, Piva male and the Tamboti young female all in the same area with mating activity and fighting between the 2 males.

The Tutlwa female analalysing the 4:4 male’s urine.

*This image is copyright of its original author

The Nanga Female and the Anderson male

*This image is copyright of its original author


*This image is copyright of its original author


*This image is copyright of its original author

July


12/07 – Piva male and Tamboti young female (three days of mating activity with the Nkoveni female being seen in the same sighting which lead to more frequent mating attempts by the Tamboti young female, as well as increased scent marking by both females)

12/07 – Mashaba female and 4:4 male (12/07-17/07)

17/07 – Piva male and Mashaba female (in the morning she had been with the 4:4 male which suggests that she might be trying to secure future cubs by mating with multiple males)

The Piva male and Tamboti young female

*This image is copyright of its original author


*This image is copyright of its original author

The Piva male spots something in the air

*This image is copyright of its original author

The Tamboti young female seemed to increase her mating activity with the Nkoveni female being up a tree just a few metres away

*This image is copyright of its original author


*This image is copyright of its original author


*This image is copyright of its original author

The Mashaba female on the day that she mated with the 4:4 male in the morning and the Piva male in the afternoon.

*This image is copyright of its original author

These are all just observations and a couple of questions, not based on  real empirical research, and for now I cant wait to see if when the next pair of leopards are seen mating wether there will be more pairs in the following days after that. The beautiful thing about being able to observe these animals so closely is that you get to ask questions like these and perhaps never know as they seem to just defy the rules on a daily basis. All we can do for now is watch and enjoy as these animals continue to leave us all with more questions than answers.


I hope that this post has got your minds wondering as much as mine is…
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Mexico Gamiz Offline
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( This post was last modified: 07-27-2016, 09:16 AM by Gamiz )

Hilarious!!! Lioness trying to lure an uninterested Male Lion to mate.

Video shot by Nina Wennersten (Hippo Creek Safaris), sabi sands, South Africa. 
Im sorry, the link of the video is false, this is from the FB
https://www.facebook.com/groups/lionking...692931010/
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( This post was last modified: 08-13-2016, 07:23 AM by Tshokwane )

From Leopard Hills:

Beautiful Scotia female leopard trailing Nyeleti.

*This image is copyright of its original author

This morning we followed Nyeleti and Scotia. She was trying her best to entice him to mate with her...

*This image is copyright of its original author


I think this highlights one of the differences between leopards and the other big cats.

Here, it's the males who decided when to mate, not the females. And not just that, but it's the female who has to "do the work" of seduction in order to convince him to mate with her. Leopardesses move out of their own territory, even invanding territories of rival females just to find the leopard they want.

In both of this instances, the roles are reversed as to what happens in the rest of the big cats, at least of what I'm aware of.

If you have a different opinion in the case of tigers, please share it, but I'm sure than in the Jaguars case it's the males who make the advances. And of course, the lion is the typical case, with them making the seductin in bad tempered lionesses snarling at them to back off.

Personally, I think we men, that usually behave like lions in this respect, should take several notes from the leopard's example to level the field...
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United States Polar Offline
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@Majingilane,

Tigresses are also known to follow prime males into their territories to mate with them. 

Lionesses, not so much. For them, once they are born, they are forever stuck to the pride in which they were born to. Same with primate females.
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Credits to Promise Mashile.

I think the male is Nyeleti, not sure who she is.

Notice the soft, low purr, to call it some way, she makes when trying to entice him, and also how, after they have mated, she wants action again and without a second thought he keeps her away.



One more thing (and it has nothing to do with mating behaviour).

At 1:10-1:20, notice the left upper arm... Ripped.
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Romania Spalea Offline
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(08-13-2016, 05:01 PM)Polar Wrote: @Majingilane,

Tigresses are also known to follow prime males into their territories to mate with them. 

Lionesses, not so much. For them, once they are born, they are forever stuck to the pride in which they were born to. Same with primate females.

About lionesses, I think the expression "forever stuck to the pride" is a little bit too excessive. Sometimes lionesses can leave the prides where they are born in... I think to the last dereck and Beverly Joubert's movie "the last lions" in which a lone lioness trying to breed her cubs wanted to become integrated into a new pride. Sometimes too, a lioness willing to protect her cubs from the arrival of new males chooses to leave the pride. This isn't common at all but this can happen.
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From Londolozi, A Rare Glimpse Into The Secretive Lives Of Two Leopards: by Shaun D'Araujo.

There have been quite a few sightings of leopards mating at Londolozi over the last month. In fact, the Piva male was seen mating with the Nkoveni female only a few days prior to mating with the Tamboti female, which is thought to be against the norm. Yesterday afternoon Elmon Mhlongo and I witnessed this very rare and secretive event. The Piva male and Tamboti female leopards were resting in an open clearing alongside a thicket of Tamboti trees when the Tamboti female uttered a low growl, rapidly moving her tail from side to side. She then proceeded to approach the Piva male, pacing up and down in front of him and in a matter of seconds, the two had mated. I glanced over to Elmon to express my excitement. He smiled back with a hint of humility that masked the endless hours that he had spent years before this to witness leopards mating. It was not always this easy.


In 1984, Warren Samuels was one of the first rangers at Londolozi to report loud guttural growls from mating leopards in the Sand River. John Varty and Elmon had just begun filming leopards and this presented them with a unique opportunity to capture leopards mating on film, something that had never been done before in this area. John and Elmon followed the leopards through some incredibly thick brush but couldn’t get a clear enough view to capture the mating. John described this as one of the most frustrating times in his life. “The bush was so dense that although we parked less than two meters from the mating we still could not see anything at all. It was almost unbearable having the camera at the ready with everything going on underneath our noses but being quite unable to film”, says John. Although the female was quite relaxed with the presence of the vehicle, the unidentified shy male continuously hid away in the thickets and the female would follow him. John and Elmon tried for hours to capture the mating but could only record the sound of the mating taking place in the thickets.

The next day, they set out at first light and Elmon tracked the leopards further upstream in the Sand River. Once again, they heard the sound of the leopards mating in impenetrable brush and after an entire day of waiting patiently, the leopards moved out into the open. This was the moment they had been waiting for and the pressure was on. John and Elmon got into position and set up their camera equipment. As John switched on his filming light, one of the batteries powering the light caught fire and plunged the Land Rover into darkness while the sound of the leopards mating filled the air around them. John, uttering swearwords that Elmon dared not repeat, scrambled to put out the fire with his hat. After driving back to camp to fetch a replacement battery, Elmon and John headed back out, and followed the leopards for a few more hours before their efforts had paid off. At around 2:00am, as the female approached the male, John and Elmon were able to capture leopards mating on film for the first time.

When leopards mate, they usually pair up for two or three days and will mate as often as every fifteen minutes or even less . Leopards have done this for thousands of years. However, only relatively recently have we been given a rare glimpse into the live of these secretive animals as they allow us to follow them, unperturbed by our presence. There are very few places that one can witness this kind of behavior from wild leopards but due to the perseverance and commitment of the trackers and rangers at Londolozi, we are able to follow their daily lives and share them with people from across the globe who will share their stories.

When leopards mate it will almost always be the female who entices the male through low growls and the rubbing of her tail and rump across his face.

*This image is copyright of its original author

The male will grab the female behind the neck in a ritualised clasp, presumed to aid in subduing her during copulation.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Mating between leopards is usually an aggressive affair, with the female often lashing out violently at the male.

*This image is copyright of its original author

As the female lashes out the male will often leap backwards to avoid her lashing claws.

*This image is copyright of its original author




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United States Pckts Offline
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( This post was last modified: 08-19-2016, 03:20 AM by Tshokwane Edit Reason: Embedding the video. )

Swethakumar Rangarao Bobbili

Posting a video of the Mayajal on August 14 th morning where Maya and matkasura were sighted together. As I couldn't capture both together due to the terrain posting this video of them crossing the road at Chital road towards Jamun bodi.

Click on it to play.



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Argentina Tshokwane Away
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It seems Maya is trying to play it safe and ditched Gabbar for Matkasur now, at least to gain his favour as well.

Love the size difference, and Matkasur is quite ripped. Thanks for the share Pckts.
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Piva male and Tamboti female. Credits to Callum Gowar.

*This image is copyright of its original author
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Maxabeni male mating with Tatowa female. Credits to Sabi Sabi.



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