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

[Ngala]

Interesting study on leopards from Pakistan. Two points, and a consideration:

1) According to this study, the leopards present in Pakistan (attributable to P. p. saxicolor in the west of Indus river, P. p. fusca in the east) is closely related to North Chinese leopard and Amur leopard, and they diverge from the African leopard in many recent times;

2) According to few studies (Miththapala et al., 1996; Meijaard, 2004), the Javan leopard is highly distinct from other subspecies of leopards; this means that is was separate and evolve indipendently very early in times. Sri Lankan leopard, is closely related to Indian leopard, this suggest a recent colonization of the Sri Lanka.

Combining this two points, leopard has followed two migratory routes out of Africa: 

• The first time, he move to south-east Asia and he colonized the land of the Sunda;
• The second time, he move to the north-east Asia and he colonized China and the Amur area (He crossed the Himalaya?).
  

This mean that the actual population of leopards in Asia is the results of the second migration, because the first have conducted the Javan leopard to evolve in the Sunda.

If anyone have consideration, would be great.

Molecular Characterization and Phylogeny of Panthera pardus (Common Leopard) in Pakistan Ijaz et al., 2016

"The present study was designed to investigate the evolutionary relationship of the Panthera pardus subspecies found in Pakistan by exploring the partial DNA sequences of mitochondrial Cytochrome c Oxidase subunit I (COI) gene. Scat samples of 15 different known leopards were collected from Nathiagali, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan. After amplification with specific oligos, the amplicons of partial region of COI were subjected to sequencing, and then observed for single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). SNPs were observed on three loci of the COI gene as compared to reference sequence of Panthera pardus pardus. The specimens found in Pakistan were found to be closely related to Panthera pardus orientalis (Amur Leopard in South eastern Russia) and Panthera pardus japonensis (North Chinese Leopard), with all of these three speculated to be evolved from Panthera pardus pardus in not-so-far past. Our findings are helpful in ascertaining the origin and closeness of leopard sub-species in Pakistan." Reply