ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - D - THE LEOPARD (Panthera pardus)

[peter]

(03-01-2017, 09:46 PM)Ngala Wrote: @peter 

Peter, you have old information and old material (like photos, any data, ...) about leopards to share (as in thread of the tiger)? I'm very interested, and i'm trying to find old information and data about the leopards.

In the tiger extinction thread, I posted about an alliance between an old male tiger and a very large male leopard in Central India. The leopard did the killing, whereas the tiger was the detective. He was always the first to visit something out ofd the ordinary. Both were very wary animals. Happened in the fifties of the last century in Central India.

In the same thread, I posted about a cross between a male leopard and a tigress. The hybryd, a male, was just over 8 feet in total length in a straight line. This was in the days of the British Raj. 

R.I. Pocock wrote a lot about leopards in British India and Africa. Some of the books and papers he wrote are on the internet. He and some hunters concluded that Indian male leopards average somewhere between 6.11-7.1 in total length in a straight line. The leopard mentioned above was one of the longest I heard of. He was 7.10 and very robust. Compared to the other big cats, Panthera pardus shows more individual variation. Sexual dimorphism in large subspecies often is very outspoken.

Where they co-exist, predators compete with each other. Although interactions between lions and hyenas draw a lot of attention in Africa, leopards also are very active. They kill cheetahs, caracals, servals and smaller cats whenever possible. Although they usually come up short in encounters, some male leopards have killed adult hyenas. Every now and then, they get the opportunity to kill young lions. This one killed two 5-month old cubs (from Carnivora):   

*This image is copyright of its original author

 

I read a book written by a man who raised 3 lion cubs to adulthood after their mother had been shot. Although they lived on his estate, they never saw anyone but him. He walked them through what would be their territory. One day, the cubs, by then quite large, detected a male leopard. They chased him, but he easily got rid of them. He then went for their guard. It looked real bad, but his jump just missed. The reason was the male lion cub had intervened. He could have saved his life. In the fight that followed, the leopard, estimated at 60 kg., was killed by the cubs but it took a long time. They definitely learned to take care of leopards. 

There is a lot on leopards on the internet. Old stuff, but interesting. Corbett wrote about the Rudraprayag man-eater. He also shot the Panar man-eater, who allegedly had killed over 400 humans. Leopards still kill and eat humans today, especially in India. It happens more often than many think.

Although quite a bit smaller than the bigger cats, leopards are more versatile, more athletic, faster and more powerful than many think. A man-eating leopard often is hard to find and very difficult to shoot (smaller target).

Leopard trainers described them as elusive, unstable (more nervous) and dangerous. Not a few of them told me they considered males in particular as psychopaths. Quite a conclusion, but they had good reasons. Leopard and jaguar trainers seemed more wary than those who trained lions and tigers. 

But Billy Arjan Singh, who raised 2 cubs to adulthood, had a very different opinion. His observations are very interesting.

This leopard was shot in northern Africa (Algeria) about a century ago. Found it at Carnivora and could have been posted by Chui:  

*This image is copyright of its original author

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