Animal · South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya
Leopard
Panthera pardus — the name this animal has in the language scientists everywhere share.
The leopard is a powerful, spotted big cat found across more habitats than any other wild cat, from African savannas to Asian forests. It is famous for hiding its kills up in trees.
Picture credit: Dr. Raju Kasambe (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Giles Laurent (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Giles Laurent (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where does the leopard live?
Home: Forests, savannas and mountains across Africa and Asia.
In the wild you find it in: South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, India, Zambia, Namibia, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe.
Conservation status from the IUCN: vulnerable.
The short profile
Fully grown it measures up to 1.9 m long, plus a 1 m tail. It weighs about 60 kilograms. On the menu: meat.
The story behind it
Leopards are incredibly strong for their size and can drag prey twice their own body weight up into a tree, keeping it safe from lions and hyenas. Their rosette-patterned coat is perfect camouflage in dappled sunlight and shadow, helping them ambush prey at close range rather than chasing over long distances. Leopards are mostly solitary and marks territory using scent and scratch marks on trees. They are extremely adaptable, living everywhere from freezing mountains to hot deserts and even close to some cities. Even so, hunting and shrinking habitat have made the species vulnerable across much of its range.
Find it on the globe
Leopard is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
Why do leopards drag their prey up trees?
Leopards haul their kills into trees to keep them safe from lions, hyenas and other scavengers that would otherwise steal the meal. This lets a leopard eat slowly over several days undisturbed.
How can you tell a leopard from a jaguar?
Leopards are generally slimmer with smaller rosettes that lack the central dot found inside a jaguar's spots, and they live in Africa and Asia rather than the Americas. Jaguars also have a stockier, more muscular build.
Are leopards good climbers?
Yes, leopards are excellent climbers and often rest on tree branches during the day, using their strong shoulders and sharp claws to grip bark. Climbing also helps them spot prey and avoid larger predators on the ground.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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