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

[Styx38]

(11-10-2019, 10:55 PM)BorneanTiger Wrote:

(11-10-2019, 02:03 PM)Styx38 Wrote:

(09-26-2019, 02:05 AM)Luipaard Wrote:

(09-25-2019, 08:23 AM)peter Wrote:

(09-12-2019, 10:24 PM)Luipaard Wrote: @peter Interestingly, the largest of all the skulls you've measured is one from Central Africa. That's not a coincidence as you have told me that these particular leopards in general have a larger and more robust skull. But when I look at the measurements, I suspect it to have been a rather smallish or young male when looking at the following measurements:

*This image is copyright of its original author

As you can see, the average size for 7 adult males in this case is 261 x 160 mm and for young adult males 237 x 140 mm. The skull you have measured (243,98 x 149,51 mm) overlaps with young and full grown males, indicating it must have been a rather small one or not full grown yet. And except for the Central African skull and the Persian one, no other skull manages to rival the smallest of the adults in the list above, let alone the average.

The sample is small of course but it's interesting to see nonetheless. And of course like you said; individual variation, especially in adult males, is well developed.

I recently talked to a vet interested in skulls. He told me about 2 leopard skulls well exceeding 10 inches in greatest total length. I'll post about both skulls when I have the details (measurements and photographs).

Looking forward to seeing your post. I'm especially interested in the origin of those two skulls.

So based on Weight and/or skull measurements for Leoaprds, this would be Leopards from largest to smallest subspecies ?


1. Persian Leopard

2. African Forest Leopard  (Unsure about Sri Lankan Leopard)

3. South African Leopard

4. Tie between Indian and other African Leopards

5. Indochinese Leopard

6. Amur Leopard (unsure about Javan Leopard)

7. Weird specimens, such as the Somalian and Cape   Leopards

8. Arabian Leopard


^Let me know if I made a mistake.

The Arabian leopard, and possibly the Zanzibar leopard, do appear to be the smallest leopards, but I would not say that the Persian or Caucasian leopard is definitely the biggest, to be, it's more like a contest between Persian, Indian, Sri Lankan and African leopards (especially in the rainforests of Africa). For instance, the largest Sri Lankan leopard was claimed to weigh 250 lbs (113.4 kg): http://www.sundaytimes.lk/970921/plus15.html

Actually, the Indian Leopard is a bit small.

Quote:In its eagerness to eliminate a man-eater leopard, the Himachal Pradesh Forest officials appear to have killed the country’s ‘largest’ wild cat. The measurement of the leopard, killed by the forest officials, was found to be 8.7 feet long, 34 inches height and 70.85 kg in weight.

https://www.dailypioneer.com/2016/state-...aspur.html


70 kg would be considered among the largest of the Indian Leopards, while 72 kg was considered average for mature Leopards in some South African National Park. Reply