The Leopard

Vital Statistics

Social Grouping of the Leopard

Leopards are generally solitary animals that lead an arboreal lifestyle which means they live in trees. Males will only interact with females long enough to mate. Both male and female leopards maintain a specific territory and males tend to respect these boundaries. Females, on the other hand, have overlapping home ranges and both sexes mark their territory with scent marking, urine spraying, tree scratching as well as scat.

How do leopards hunt?

Leopards are carnivores and only consume meat. The prey that leopards prefer ranges in sizes from between 5 kg (11 lbs.) up to as much as 70 kg (150 lbs.). Even though leopards are opportunistic hunters, they are not averse to taking carrion if the opportunity arises. Baboons, monkeys, hares, and porcupines are also on the leopards’ menu.

Leopards will drink water when needed and as often as they can find water, but will also get enough moisture from the prey they consume.

The term “leopard crawl” is commonly used and it refers to the leopard’s master ability to stalk its prey. Leopards do prefer to hunt at night but have been recorded to take opportunistic prey if the opportunity is favorable. The leopard will stalk its prey to as close as possible before rushing into a swift powerful pounce.

They are masters at camouflage that aids in their survival and elusiveness! Leopards are also known to steal the prey of cheetah. The hunting success during day time is not as great as during the night and they only have about a 10% hunting success rate during the day.

Safeguarding their prey/kill

As previously mentioned, the leopard is altogether a powerful predator that leads an arboreal lifestyle. Even though the leopard is known to be the second-largest predator in Africa, their skills leave them vulnerable to bigger predators like the lion, and also animals that hunt and cooperate in packs, for example, the spotted hyena and the African wild dogs.

Nevertheless, they have adapted! After they have successfully killed their prey, they will drag the kill into the nearest tree for safekeeping and guard it against scavengers and opportunistic animals.
Leopards are skilled tree climbers and can hoist carcasses into the tree that can weigh its body weight.

It has great balance and sharp claws to climb trees. It simply drags the kill up the tree, grasping the carcasses in its powerful jaws. When the kill is safe, high up in the tree, it can feast on the flesh peacefully, sleep, and then wander off only to return once more to consume everything.

After the leopard has consumed quite a decent size prey, it does not have to hunt again for up to 3-4 days.

Reproduction of the Leopards

Female leopards become sexually mature at the age of 2 years. Males will activity seeks out female leopards that are ready to mate. Females will display behavior whereby she presents herself in a copulatory crouch to the male, or she will nuzzle him, roll on the ground and lift her tail in front of him. Mating is not often observed and if you ever encounter this unique sighting, you can count yourself lucky.

Mating is usually brief but frequent, lasting for only a few seconds, after which the male will bite the female’s ears and the female will respond aggressively, lashing out and even snarling or growl at him.

Gestation is 3 months, with 1-3 cubs being born in a concealed area, where they will be nursed for 6 weeks. After this, they can make short trips following mom around and will start to eat meat.

The leopards’ cubs are fully weaned at 3 months, but still won’t be able to look after themselves up until they are a year old. During this time, the mother will spend half of her day by herself, hunting and feeding, and the other half of the day with her cubs. Cubs grow accustomed to going for long periods without eating followed by gorging themselves when they do get food.

Leopard cubs and how they learn

As cubs start to become stronger and gain more confidence, they will start to venture out and play for long sessions that will eventually prepare them for hunting. During these play sessions, they will stalk each other or things, learn to pounce the tip of their mother’s tail or each other.

At 5 weeks old, they can catch small things like lizards, mice, or frogs. Before their first year, they will be able to make small kills like hares, etc. for themselves and will hunt with their mother until they are 2 years old. They will only reach full adult size within 3-4 years. At this stage, their mother will become aggressive towards them as her next estrous cycle approaches.

She will now start to drive them away so that the adult males wanting to mate with her won’t kill the young adults.

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