Sri Lankan Leopard (Panthera pardus kotiya)

[Luipaard]

(06-15-2019, 05:07 PM)Pckts Wrote: How come you didn't bold this part?

"Though the African leopard (Panthera Pardus Pardus) is a larger animal, it is very secretive and almost totally nocturnal. He is far too fearful of lions and rightly so."

This account reads more like a fairy tale than fact unfortunately. He should of left the speculation out if the kill happened late in the night. Also, a buffalo is going to be too large to drag for a leopard, even after feeding on it that night. A calf or sub adult may be possible to drag and I'd assume that's what this was.

I didn't bold it becouse it is irrelevant and it's partly true.

The problem with leopards is that there's so much diversity; you have savannah leopards (e.g. South Africa), cape leopards (Cape Province), mountain leopards (Aberdare, Kenya) and rainforest leopards (Central Africa). They all have a different built/appearance.

For example, the highest mean weight for adult males is 68kg in Kwazulu Natal, South Africa (from Applicability of Age-Based Hunting Regulations for African Leopards).

As I've mentioned before, the average weight of adult male leopards in the Tuli Predator Project (Botswana) was 70.3kg. The site is unavailable but here's a screenshot via Webarchive:

*This image is copyright of its original author

As we've discussed before, Central African leopards have the largest skulls of all leopard subspecies, reaching the size of Amazon and Pantanal jaguars.

The only weight chart we have for Sri Lankan leoapards, is an old one where Sri Lankans averaged 56kg, the heaviest weighing 77kg:

*This image is copyright of its original author

In the book For the Leopard: A Tribute to the Sri Lankan Leopard (by Rukshan Jayewardene), a leopard which was captured in the Gal Oya National Park in southern Sri Lanka was weighed at 81kg.

In the book Big Cats: Kingdom of Might (by Tom Brakesfield), it is stated that 90kg Sri Lankan leopards have been recorded:

*This image is copyright of its original author

So the part that I didn't bold is only partly true. I would say that Sri Lankan leopards are bigger than African leopards, with the exception of Central African leopards and a few populations like in Aberdare, Kenya. Reply