Leopard

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A Leopard.

A Leopard on a tree.

The head of a Persian Leopard.

An Amur Leopard in a zoo.

A leopard (Panthera pardus) is a big feline of the genus Panthera. It lives in Africa and Asia.

1 Appearance
2 Habitat
3 Life
4 Taxonomy
5 Links

[edit] Appearance

Leopards generally have yellow fur with dark rosettes and spots, and a lighter colored underside. But there can be a lot of differences in the different leopard subspecies. There are also often leopards who are completely black, those are also called black panthers.

[edit] Habitat

Originally the leopard lived in all of Africa (but not in the Sahara) and southern Asia. But today many leopard subspecies, especially in Asia, are endangered, disappearing or dying. The leopard lives in the largest range of all big cats, and because of this it has a lot of different subspecies. Leopards also live in a lot of different environments: rainforests, forests, mountains and savannas.

[edit] Life

The leopard is mostly active at night. It can climb very well, and it stays up in trees a lot of its time. It mostly eats middle-big mammals, but also birds, reptiles and insects. Leopards hunt at different times of the day, and they also use different methods for hunting. Most often leopards will secretly move towards their prey and attack it when they are close, or hide and wait for it to come close. After the hunt, leopards often take their prey up on a tree, or sometimes hide it, so that other animals cannot take it away.

Leopards usually live alone and try not to meet another leopard. They only come together to mate. Young leopards leave their mothers after 13 - 18 months.