African Leopard- A Good Hunter in Tree

African Leopard

The African Leopard (Panthera pardus pardus) is a leopard subspecies transpiring throughout most of sub-Saharian Africa. They are becoming progressively rare outside secured places. The trend of the population is reducing. So for this reason, the IUCN identified leopards as Near Threatened.

Geographical Deviation and Characteristics of African Leopard

African leopards present great variance in coat color, based on place and environment. Coat color differs from pale yellow to deeply gold or tawny, and often black, and is designed with black rosettes while the head, lower limbs and belly are identified with solid black. Male leopards are bigger, averaging 60 kg (130 lb) with 91 kg (201 lb) being the highest possible weight acquired by a male. Females weigh about 35 to 40 kg (77 to 88 lb) in average.

Behavior and Ecology of African Leopard

Leopards are usually most energetic between sunset and sunrise, and kill more prey  at the moment. They have a remarkable capability to adjust to changes in prey availableness, and have a very large diet.

Leopards often cache large kills in trees, a tendency for which great energy is needed. There have been various observations of leopards transporting carcasses of young giraffe, approximated to weigh up to 125 kg (276 lb), i.e. 2–3 times the weight of the leopard, up to 5.7 m (19 ft) into trees.Leopards are very stealthy and like to stalk close and run a comparatively short range after their prey. They kill via suffocation by snatching their prey by the throat and biting down with their strong jaws. They seldom fight other predators for their food.

Threats for African Leopard

All over Africa, the main threats to leopards are environment conversion and extreme persecution, particularly in retribution for real and identified livestock loss. In Tanzania, only males are permitted to be hunted, but females composed 28.6% of 77 trophies shot between 1995 and 1998. Eliminating an extremely high number of males may generate a cascade of deleterious results on the population. Though male leopards offer no parental care to cubs, the existence of the sire enables mothers to raise cubs with a lowered risk of infanticide by foreign males. There are few efficient observations of infanticide in leopards but new males coming into the population are prone to kill current cubs.

With improving proximity to settlements and concomitant human hunting pressure, leopards manipulate smaller prey and occur at significantly reduced population densities. In the presence of intensive bushmeat hunting encompassing human settlements, leopards appear completely omitted.