25 Amazing Facts about Leopard | Amazing Facts 4U
- The scientific name of Leopard is Panthera pardus.
- Leopards are easily recognized by their stunning amazing rosette patterned skin. The head, neck, and legs are covered in black spots, with more intricate markings, called “rosettes”, on the remainder of the body. Each rosette is made up of three or four black spots on the outside with a yellow-brown center.
- There are about 50000 leopards living around the globe, in fact, 10 times more than lions, tigers, and cheetahs combined.
- Leopards are in fact pound for pound the strongest of the big cats.
- They’re experts at climbing up and down trees, often descending headfirst. They’re the largest cat species that regularly climbs trees. They are able to climb trees even when carrying heavy prey and often choose to rest on tree branches during the day.
- Leopards are renowned for their agility. They run up to 58 km/h and can leap 6m horizontally and 3m vertically. They are also very strong swimmers.
- They have amazing hearing. Leopards can pick up five times more sounds than humans can.
- Leopards don’t need to drink much water; they can live off the moisture in their prey.
- Amongst the big cats, they are the most accomplished stalkers. Leopards stalk their prey until they are a few feet away and pounce the prey. They do not usually miss. If it misses, it will seldom chase its prey. It can kill prey many times larger than it.
- Adult leopards are solitary animals. Each adult leopard has its own territory where it lives and, although they often share parts of it, they try to avoid one another.
- They are very resourceful and they can adapt to almost any environment.
- A leopard’s tail is just about as long as its entire body. This helps it with balance and enables it to make sharp turns quickly.
- Leopards are mostly nocturnal, hunting prey at night.
- Leopards protect their food from other animals by dragging it high up into the trees. They can carry carcasses weighing more than twice their weight up vertical tree trunks.
- They readily eat rotten meat and will feed on a stored carcass for up to four days.
- A leopard will often leave their prey up in the tree for days and return only when they are hungry!
- In the wild, leopards live between 12 to 15 years; in zoos, they can live up to 22 years.
- The leopard is the most elusive and secretive of the cats. This is due to the fact that they are rather shy, secretive, and mainly nocturnal. They are very difficult to trace and locate in the wild.
- Leopards tend to have two or three cubs per gestation. Mothers refrain from wandering their territories after giving birth until their young are capable to come with them. Cubs suckle for around 3 months and are kept hidden for about the first 8 weeks to protect themselves from predators.
- By the time a cub is two years old, it will leave the company of its mother and live on its own.
- Leopards tend to have distinctive dark spots called rosettes, which create beautiful patterns against their otherwise light fur. Black leopards however have dark fur which makes it difficult to see the spots. They appear almost solid black and are often called black panthers.
- Leopards have the widest range of habitats of all the big cats. This adaptability has allowed them to survive in various different geographic areas. Perhaps the most extreme example is the amazing snow leopard which lives in the Himalayas.
- Leopards have a distinctive call that sounds like a wood plank being cut with a saw. The sawing sound is repeated at intervals of six minutes or so during the peak calling hours which tend to occur in the early evening or before dawn.
- The leopard’s call allows territorial neighbors to keep out of each other’s way and also allows males and females to find each other.
- Leopards also make other sounds like growling when aggressive, spitting and snarling when threatened, and purring when contented.
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