FELIDAE Cats

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Panthera pardus (Linnaeus, 1758) Synonym: Felis pardus Linnaeus, 1758. English name: Leopard. 

Local names: Chitabagh, Goolbagh, Gechobagh, Lamchita. 

Description: A typical Panther from the Indian peninsula is a sleek short-haired animal. A large, powerfully built cat, with an elongated body, a long tail, and short, stout legs. Head is rather small and convex. Ears rounded, backside black, with a conspicuous white spot. Coat above is short and soft. Colour: general ground-colour of upper side bright, but varying a little in intensity from nearly golden to ochreous or orange-tawny, darker on back than on flanks. There are many solid black spots on head and for a short distance behind it, on outer side of limbs and on belly, which is heavily spotted, but elsewhere in body pattern of black spots mostly consists of definite rosettes which appear to result from coalescence of four or five small solid spots to form definite but irregularly shaped rings surrounding an area of darker tint. A fulvous or bright fulvous coat marked with small close-set black rosettes. Rosettes on mid-dorsal and loins are more elongated and show a tendency to run in longitudinal stripe-like lines. On the tail the pattern is less regular and less rosettes-like, individual rosettes being coalesced towards the end above, whereas the underside is almost unspotted. Underparts and the inner side of limbs are white. Melanistic or black panthers are also known. It is a genetic error, called melanism, that lets these animals appear black, while the animal actually is not simply black, but extremely dark in colour. If anybody carefully checks the coat of melanistic leopards, he will discover that it is more brownish than black and the rosettes-and spots-pattern still can be seen. As a very general rule, a leopard is either black or normally coloured, and cubs of the two types will be found in the same litter. Size: head-body length 160 cm; tail 100 cm; hind foot 20-27 cm (Pocock, 1939; Prater, 1980; Ghosh, 1994). 

Habits: Being more tolerant of the sun they frequently hunt by day, particularly if they have failed to secure food at night. The Panther kill and eat anything it can overpower safely including cattle, deer, hare, wild boar, langur and monkeys, the smaller beasts of prey, and larger rodents, like porcupines. Panthers living near human settlement, particularly outside forest areas, prey mainly domestic animals, calves, sheep, and goats; on ponies and donkeys, and quite commonly on dogs. It seizes its quarry from the ground or leaps on it from a height such as an overhanging branch (Prater, 1980; Arivazhagan et al., 2007). The most typical vocal communication among leopards would be the 'sawing', which sounds much like law-a-haw-ahaw', hence as if someone would be sawing a piece of wood. This soiund tends to occur early in the morning and shortly before dawn, apparently when the animal is moving. Leopards also use a wide range of facial expressions and body postures to communicate with each other, which are of importance in interaction and cooperation within a young family as well as in territorial issues. For tactile communication they perform the cattypical social licking and head rubbing (Estes, 1991; Fumagalli, 2008). Breed all the year round. In captivity, female produces the first litter when 21/2 to 4 years of age. Gestation period varies from 87 to 94 days. Normally 2 cubs per litter are born, occasionally 3 or 4. Eyes open between the 4th and 8th day after birth. Weaned at about 4 months. (Prater 1980). The females of this species tend to take care of the young but there have been reports of males helping the nursing mother and child, by bringing them kills for example (Guggisberg, 1975). Habitat: Panthers are able to live and thrive almost anywhere. They are not restricted to forests or heavy cover and thrive as well in open country as among rocks and scrub. 

Distribution: Occurs in mixed evergreen forests in Bangladesh (IUCN Bangladesh, 2003). The leopard is found across most of sub-Saharan Africa, as. remnant populations in North Africa, and then in the Arabian peninsula and Sinai/Judean Desert (Egypt/Israel/Jordan), south-western and eastern Turkey, and through Southwest Asia and the Caucasus into the Himalayan foothills, India, China, and the Russian Far East, as well as on the islands of Java and Sri Lanka (Nowell and Jackson 1996; Sunquist and Sunquist, 2002). Out of nine subspecies, Panthera pardus fusca occurs in the Indian subcontinent. 

Status: A Critically Endangered species in Bangladesh (IUCN Bangladesh, 2003). Included on CITES Appendix I. Classified as Near Threatened (NT) on IUCN Red List (Breitenmoser et al., 2008). Protected in Bangladesh by Schedule 1 of Bangladesh Wildlife (Preservation) (Amendment) Act, 1974. 

Remarks: Greek leopardos, from leon = lion; pardos = male panther. The animal was thought in ancient times to be a hybrid of these two species. In Bangladesh, leopards are feared for their attacks on people. 

[Ghazi S M Asmat] 

Copy from

Encyclopedia of flora and fauna of  Bangladesh