Persian Leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor)

[GuateGojira]

Largest wild leopard ever?

Recently, Dr Mohammad S. Farhadinia and his team wrote an excellent set of documents about the Persian leopard, a highly endangered subspecies of leopard that seems to be the largest member of the species (although this is still debatable).

The document that I will discuss is "Patterns of sexual dimorphism in the Persian Leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor) and implications for sex differentiation" from 2014. This document present the first set of measurements from this population and suggest that in fact, it is among the largest on record.

Here is the table with the set of measurements:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Were they get this data, here is the source:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Finally, here is the paragraph about the record leopard of 115 kg:

*This image is copyright of its original author

It is interesting that they accept the record and label it as "exceptional" and like "the largest" recorded in the entire range. Here is the page in the news letter No.7 of 2014:

*This image is copyright of its original author

From my point of view, the first and second picture do show a large specimen, probably about c.150 cm in head-body. The third picture is the problematic one, as it seems to be smaller than the previous views.

The comparison with the tiger is problematic, as the use of the news article has been proved incorrect in previous reports, specially by the fact that we don't know if the tiger was actually weighed, while in the case of the leopard, this seems to be the case. Check also that the leopard is a wild specimen while the tiger is from captivity, so the wild specimen most be arguably more massive than its counterpart from the zoo.

Now, it is possible that the leopard had some stomach content, but we can't be sure entirely. We most remember some cases of large weights recorded that are not entirely supported with the presented pictures, but in this case, the weight was corroborated by the Veterinary and accepted by the team of scientists, we have pictures (two of them showing a large animal) and even a total length of the specimen. I see (at this moment) no reason to not accept the record, although we most label it as "exceptional" as normally male leopards weight about 60-70 kg in most of the regions with specimens of 80-90 kg been big and over that entirely rare.

Now, as I have said, total length means nothing to me, apart from an estimation of its size, but what about the body length? It was taken over curves of between pegs? Well, we know that this leopards measure on average 221 cm and a maximum of 240 cm, which still fit in the range of the large leopard populations, like India and South Africa, but surpass all the other populations.

Dr Bahram H. Kiabi and his team presented a document in 2002 named "Population status of the Persian Leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor Pocock, 1927) in Iran", here they present the first single measurements of male leopards with an index of tail/total length. Check the image:

*This image is copyright of its original author

An average of all the figures gives a number of 0.73, suggesting a head-body of c.155 cm for the largest male (total length of 213 cm). The problem is that when I applied this index to the largest male recorded by Dr Farhadinia (240 cm) it gives a head-body of c.175 cm! This number has been suggested for leopards in the past, but I still doubt about this figures. Based in the picture, the 115 kg male seems to be of 150 cm straight but if we use the index of 0.73 in its total length of 230 cm (reported by @Pckts) it gives a number of c.168 cm, still too exceptional for a leopard of the size of the one in the picture. The longest leopard measured in straight line that I am aware was a male of 155 cm from India (Athreya & Belsare, 2008), but apart from that, all the other males (African or Asian) on record are lower than that figure. That is why I found hard to believe in a figure of 168 cm for a leopard.

Maybe, those leopards were measured "over curves", giving a proper figure of 158 cm, using the difference of c.13 cm of between pegs-over curves recorded from Cooch Behar for leopards. Other thing are the sources used by Dr Farhadinia, which also include specimens investigated according with images. In the comparative image, a leopard of 175 cm in head-body looks like the largest jaguar recorded, and it should be very slim to weight only 90 kg.

Following the rules of my images, I will use the data as it is, but I will put a note stating that there is no information about how those leopards were measured (over curves or in straight line). I will contact Dr Farhadinia in order to know the method used for those leopards and if result that the figures were taken in straight line, we will provide a certain evidence that those leopards are in fact, the largest of the species.

In my next post, the comparative image, depending of the answer of Dr Farhadinia.

Greetings to all. Reply