Size comparisons

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(09-01-2019, 05:38 AM)peter Wrote:

(08-31-2019, 07:54 PM)chui_ Wrote: Hello Peter

Coming back to the leopard skulls you’ve looked at. If it’s not too much trouble could you provide any further details about the 12 skulls which were from outside Tanzania (location/origin, age, size etc). I’m assuming when you say western Central Africa you mean Cameroon (a former German colony)? If so can you tell me what specific area the biggest skull and others were from? I ask because Cameroon spans a large area from north to south and as a result covers different African biomes (the sahel, the savanna, savanna/forest mosaic, rainforest). Also, recent genetic studies suggest the leopards of Cameroon may group with 3 distinct populations – West African, Central/East African, and the Gabonese in the south (although further studies are needed to confirm this).

Regarding the skulls from Tanzania (formerly German East Africa), I suspect all or most of the skulls you looked at may have been from the lower elevation southern and coastal areas of that country where the leopards are known to be pretty small, averaging around 45kg based on recorded data. The bigger leopards in Tanzania (and East Africa in general) are those from the highlands in the more northern and western parts of that country (near the border with Kenya and Uganda) – averaging around 60kg based on recorded data from Kenya and northern Tanzania. And the very biggest in East Africa appear to be from the dense forests surrounding mountain peaks – especially areas like the Aberdares and Mt Kenya in Kenya but also places like Mt Meru in Tanzania. No specific sample available from these high mountain forests but PH Hamilton (senior wildlife biologist of the Kenya Wildlife department in the 1980s) indicated an average of around 70kg for males in the mountain forests with a range of 60-95kg (probably based on hunted specimens). This overall trend in leopard size related to elevation has been noted pretty consistently by professional hunters experienced in East Africa.

For comparison to the fairly small skulls from former German East Africa (modern day Tanzania) - Pocock with his sample from mostly Kenya (former British East Africa) and northern Tanzania gave an average of 236mm greatest length for adult male leopard skulls from East Africa (vs your max of only 221mm). As noted above this probably reflects the difference in habitat – with most of British East Africa occupying the highland areas of Kenya where leopards are bigger compared to the area of German East Africa being mostly low ground miombo woodland type habitat known for its small leopards.

The next days, I'm out. I'll start on a table next week. Might take some time, as it needs to be accurate. Will post it later this week.  

My proposal is to continue in the leopard extinction thread. That's the one we should use when discussing the essentials of leopards.

Overall it looks like, that a lot of discussion and some adjustment to jaguar weight information. Still that one discussion, that where are the biggest leopards in average and differences with other subspecies/populations stayed as open as it was before. Looks like it, that there simply isn´t enough information available to know for sure. But on the other hand, what would life be if no little mysteries time to time :) Reply