Bigcats News

[paul cooper]

(09-15-2017, 08:09 AM)sanjay Wrote: definitely a Leopard

A recent photo that sparked speculation that an Indonesian tiger species had come back from extinction most likely shows instead a rare, but certainly not extinct, Javan leopard (Panthera pardus melas), scientists say.
The photo, taken by rangers at Ujung Kulon National Park at the western tip of the island of Java, showed a big cat that many initially thought bore a resemblance to the Javan tiger (Panthera tigris sondaica), a subspecies believed to have gone extinct in the 1980s but only officially declared so 14 years ago.
The significance of the purported discovery prompted scientists to investigate the photos and videos taken by the park rangers. Their conclusion: the animal pictured was a leopard, not a tiger.
“We used three methods to analyze [the image], namely measurement, skin pattern and feeding behavior,” Gono Semiadi, a mammal expert with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), told Mongabay on Sept. 28.

*This image is copyright of its original author

The big cat seen in the photo, captured after feeding, has body proportions consistent more with a Javan leopard than a Javan tiger, Semiadi said.
In addition, the pattern on its body, though grainy in the photograph, appears to show dots rather than stripes, he added.
A similar analysis of a video recording of the sighting showed the animal’s feeding habit skewed closer to that of the critically endangered Javan leopard, which typically curls its long tail upward when eating.
Anton Ario, a researcher and program manager at Conservation International (CI) Indonesia, attributed the widespread misidentification of the cat to the poor quality of the recordings taken at the time.
The photo that generated a considerable buzz online was itself a screenshot from the 36-second video taken on either a mobile phone or digital camera from a long distance, Anton said.

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Even if, as suspected, it was a leopard that was sighted, the incident should serve to highlight the importance of protecting the animal, said Wulan Pusparini, a researcher at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). “We must improve research and protection of the Javan leopard,” she said.

Listed by the IUCN as a step away from being extinct in the wild, the Javan leopard population is estimated at fewer than 250 mature individuals.

https://news.mongabay.com/2017/10/photo-...tists-say/ Reply