Size comparisons

[Wolverine]

(04-26-2019, 11:56 PM)Luipaard Wrote: This is reliable, weight chart regarding Persian leopards;

While for sure it create impression for reliability obviously many respectful organisations in the area of wildlife research and protection and more especialy Panthera.org don't find a body mass of 115 kg very reliable  or have decided that such a specimen is completely unnormal for the specie so the have stated openly that maximum weight of the wild leopards is 90 kg (17-90 kg):
https://www.panthera.org/cat/leopard

While for jaguars is written body mass 36-158 kg :
https://www.panthera.org/cat/jaguar

Its easy to calculate that according Panthera.org as average jaguar is 1,8 times more massive than the leopard.
Any mass more than 100 kg would be unfunctional for the animal who spent big part of his life on the trees and rely for his hunt and survival on its climbing capabalities and any additional mass would be a burden. The nature does not want from leopards to be massive.

Concerning Persian leopards. Probably this is the King of all leopards. When a Persian male arrived for first time in our zoo I was like hypnotised and stuck to the cage for 20 minutes. Its not taller than Africans in the shoulders but its body is more elongated. Long, elegant, atletic, noble "beast". For thousand years for the people in Asia word "Persian" has symbolised a good taste, nobility in any area of the life - arts, dressing, habitutes, food, same like word "French" is symbol of good taste for the Western people. So Persian leopard is exactly such a "noble" beast. It lacks the  robustness and massivnes of the jaguar but since its body is elongated nevertheless it has higher body mass than leopards from East Africa (Kenya) we have. While Central African and Persian leopards are probably rivals in terms of record size, I think that as average Persian leopard should be number one because it inhabit cold climate (Bergman's rule).

Persian leopard has never been so numerous as African ones and now probably only 700-800 are left so mathematical probability to find among them a giant is far less than among Africans. Mean the more numerous is one population the higher is probability to find exceptional specimen who is basically "unnormal". In other words in the case of the Persian leopard the largest subspecie should be the one who has highest average weight not the one who hold the records. If you have 50 000 leopards in Africa for sure some of them will be larger than many big Persians who are left only few hundred in the wild. Reply