Wild Life

Diet & Hunting

Leopards are versatile, opportunistic hunters. In the open savanna, they are most successful when hunting between sunset and sunrise, though they may hunt during the day, especially in forest areas when they have the advantage of being hidden by dense brush or cloudy skies. The leopard stalks its prey silently and at the last minute pounces on its prey and strangles its throat with a quick bite. Leopards often hide their kills in dense vegetation or take them up trees, and are capable of carrying animals up to three times their own weight this way. The leopard is the only big cat known to carry its prey up into a tree.

Leopards have relatively flexible dietary needs and generally feed on a greater diversity of prey compared to other members of the Panthera species. Although mid-sized animals are preferred, the leopard will eat anything from dung beetles to 900 kg (1,984 lb) male giant elands. Their diet consists mostly of ungulates and monkeys, but rodents, reptiles, amphibians, insects, birds, and fish are also eaten. One survey of nearly 30 research papers conducted by Hayward et al. (2006) found preferred prey weights of 10 to 40 kg (22–88 lb), with 25 kg (55 lb) most preferred. Along with impala and chital, a preference for bushbuck and duiker was found. Other prey selection factors include a preference for prey in small herds, in dense habitat, and those that afford the predator a low risk of injury.

In Africa, mid-sized antelopes provide a majority of the leopard's prey, especially impala and Thomson's gazelles. In Asia, the leopard preys on deer such as chital sand muntjacs, as well as various Asian antelopes and ibex. Prey preference estimates in southern India showed that the most favored prey of the leopard was the Chital. A study at the Wolong Reserve in China revealed how adaptable the leopard's hunting behaviour is: over the course of seven years, the vegetative cover receded, and the animals opportunistically shifted from primarily consuming tufted deer to instead pursuing bamboo rats and other smaller prey.

Physical Characteristic

The leopard is an agile and stealthy predator. Although smaller than other members of the Panthera genus, the leopard is still able to take large prey given its massive skull that facilitates powerful jaw muscles. Its body is comparatively long for a cat and its legs are short. Head and body length is between 125 and 165 cm (49 and 65 in) and the tail reaches 60 to 110 cm (24 to 43 in). Shoulder height is 45 to 80 cm (18 to 31 in). The muscles attached to the scapula are exceptionally strong, which enhances the leopard's ability to climb trees.

Leopards show a great diversity in size. Males are about 30% larger than females,weighing 30 to 91 kg (66 to 200 lb) compared to 23 to 60 kg (51 to 130 lb) for females. Large males of up to 91 kg have been documented in Kruger National Park in South Africa; however, males in the South Africa's coastal mountains average a much smaller 31 kg. This wide variation in size is thought to result from the quality and availability of prey found in each habitat. Smaller sized leopards also are known in the deserts of the Middle East.

Leopards may sometimes be confused with two other large spotted cats, the cheetah, with which it may co-exist inAfrica, and the jaguar, a neotropical species that it does not naturally co-exist with. However, the patterns of spots in each are different: the cheetah has simple spots, evenly spread; the jaguar has small spots inside the polygonalrosettes; while the leopard normally has rounder, smaller rosettes than those of the jaguar. The leopard is larger and much more muscular than the cheetah, but slightly smaller and more lightly built than the jaguar.

Leopards show a great diversity in physical appearance, particularly because of the wide variations in color coat and rosette patterns. The leopard's rosettes are circular in East Africa but tend to be squarer in southern Africa and larger in Asian populations. The leopard's yellow coat tends to more pale and cream colored in desert populations, more gray in colder climates, and of a darker golden hue in rainforest habitats. Overall, the fur under the belly tends to be lighter colored and of a softer, downy type. Solid black spots in place of open rosettes are generally seen along the face, limbs and underbelly.