Size comparisons

[Pckts]

(04-29-2019, 12:43 PM)Luipaard Wrote:

(04-28-2019, 10:24 AM)Wolverine Wrote:

(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.

I'm aware of your calculations. Good that you're using Panthera as a source, becouse one of their researchers (Jo Taylor) admitted that leopards from Central Africa do look bigger and more robust.

However, you're kinda manipulating your numbers. 90kg is not the max weight according to that weight chart. So you have to use that weight number since you used the 158kg weight number for the jaguar. So if we use the 115kg Persian male, jaguar is 1,37 times more massive than the leopard.'
This is why I don't calculate like that, it doesn't give you a clear idea.

Quote:It lacks the robustness and massivnes of the jaguar

Only Central African leopards come close in terms of robustness.

Quote: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.

In the absence of a more dominant competitor the subordinate species will tend to exhibit an increase in size (this is known as character release). Those subspecies happen to be the largest ones in the world; Sri Lankan, Persian, Central African and some exceptions in Eastern Africa (e.g. Aberdare mountains). In the savanna the leopard’s size is constrained by its need to be much smaller than the lion in order to reduce competition over prey and also to be able to evade the larger cat by climbing further up into trees etc. In the forest the leopard is free to hunt larger animals and also does not need to stay lightweight to climb high into trees.

And regarding the limitation of their weight; the chart kinda proved that there isn't a barrier (in this case the famous 90kg one). A young Persian male already weighed 64kg (source), that's the average size of an adult South African male.

@Pckts Those are impressive jaguars. Sad pictures but still. I don't like the comparison with those 2 hunted leopards though. You just showed 2 mediocre males and compare them with the largest jaguars.

Here's a comparison of a Persian leopard and another mediocre male leopard

*This image is copyright of its original author

I can show you many more pictures like these that can match your impressive photo 'collection'. Those leopards happen to be the larger subspecies (Eastern African, Anatolian, Barbary, Central African, ...). However, I'm not going to post them here. I understand this is not the right thread and I understand that other members on this forum do not appreciate these kind of pictures. I don't like them either, they disgust me.

So if you really want to discuss further (I'd like to anyway), I can PM you?

If you want to pick and choose which cats to compare to, of course you can find similar sizes, I just posted cats in the same positions that I could find. But when comparing to the cats I posted, that Persian for instance is much shorter and easier to display. The Jaguar I posted is almost folded due to the mass and size over whelming that man comparee to the Persian which sits on the man's shoulders and its body is easily displayed.  

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

Do you really think that Persian is as large as this Jaguar?



But anyway, yes feel free to PM from here on out and I'd be happy to discuss further. Reply