|
Rainforest Leopards
|
Central African leopards main prey for males are red river hogs. There's no doubt it would be a much bigger struggle taking it down than something like an impala which is the main prey for savanna leopards. Though the lack of more dominant competitors would certainly have some influence, the more impressive prey taken by leopards in the forest would be the main factor behind their more robust builds. And don't forget they also predate on forest buffaloes:
From 'Leopard food habits in the Lopé National Park, Gabon, Central Africa' (by P. Henschel, 2005) Quote:The most important single prey species was found to be red river hog Potamochoerus porcus (Linnaeus), making up 20% of the biomass consumed, followed by forest buffalo Syncerus caffer nanus (Boddaert) and cane rat Thryonomys swinderianus (Temminck), each comprising 13% of biomass consumed. From "Leopard attack on and consumption of gorillas in the Central African Republic" 1995 (by Michael Fay.)  *This image is copyright of its original author They even predate on 200kg adult okapis (!) It's only logical that these leopards are bigger and more robust, it's an adaptation to take on larger prey. As for the sexual dimorphism in Central African leopards @Pckts The male skulls from this region are so much bigger and more muscularly developed than the female skulls that early zoologists actually thought they were 2 different species. The reason is probably more enhanced resource partitioning. In the South African savanna for example, the main prey for both male and female leopards is impala. And while the second most important prey for females is small duikers, for male leopards it’s warthogs. In the central African forest, however, things get more interesting because there isn’t a nimble impala like substitute so males appear to have shifted more exclusively to the available suids (red river hogs) and females more exclusively to duikers. Extensive studies by Philip Henschel have shown that hogs and duikers are the main prey for leopards here and he suspects it’s the males who are mostly preying on the hogs. And this has probably resulted in the male leopards here becoming more specialized big game hunters and the already extreme sexual dimorphism in the species becoming even more pronounced in this region. The most dimorphic modern big cat definitely appears to be the leopard. In most regions like India, Sri Lanka, and East Africa male skulls are around 20% larger than female skulls but in the Congo Basin region the difference is over 30% which is quite extraordinary. To my knowledge no other felid species exhibits anywhere near this level of sexual dimorphism. African lions are also at the upper extreme in terms of sexual dimorphism with male skulls generally being around 20% larger with some samples from certain regions showing a difference of up to 25%. Among tigers, the smaller subspecies from Southeast Asia are less dimorphic at 15% while the larger subspecies (Bengal, Amur, Caspian) show a difference of around 20% or so. The available data on jaguar skulls is summarized well by Hoogesteijn in the following table. Most of the skull measurements used were originally published by Pocock, Goldman, and Almeida. Compared to females, adult male skulls from Central America were 13.2% larger, from the Amazon 10.8% larger, from the Pantanal 12.8% larger, and from the Llanos 19.3% larger.  *This image is copyright of its original author The following tables from Pocock and Allen show skull measurements for leopards from the Congo Basin forest and the adjacent forest/savanna mosaic habitat. The average skull length for 22 adult males was 254.2mm and for 18 females 193.4mm, a difference of 31.4%. Also note that the male skull average in this sample is equal to the average Pantanal jaguaress (78kg).  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author You can argue all you want. The evidence is there. |
| Users browsing this thread: |
| 3 Guest(s) |