Persian Leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor)

[tigerluver]

Having over a quarter of one's body weight of food at once is very unlikely (the assumption here to round down to 90 kg), I feel the study that concluded this missed many factors and subsequently a cats ability to eat has been mythologized to unreal amounts. At the same time, the leopard is missing a paw I think and was in bad shape, so it could have gorged after a long period of starvation. Even then, 25 kg of food is likely an overestimate. 

Take the Etosha lion for example. Gorged, it still was only estimated to have 8.3% of food content in its belly by a vet. 100-105 kg empty would be a better estimate if we assume gorging in my opinion. 

Keep in mind, leopard and jaguars seem to be proportionately heavier than tigers and lions (ignoring the island tigers). This is proven by the negative allometry found by Christiansen in his equations. 

Finally, the image in which the leopard's belly looks distented, the ground looks unleveled, which may falsely create the effect, but I'm not sitting on this thought.
  Reply