Archive for the 'Big cats' category

The Amur Leopard (from the name of the river flowing at the border between Russia and China, or Far Eastern leopard, Panthera pardus orientalis) is quite certainly the rarest and most endangered big cat in the world because of a wild population of only 30 to 35 individuals [1].

ALTA (the Amur Leopard and Tiger Alliance) regroups 13 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that decided to fight for the preservation of these animals. Here is a 10-min video presenting the Amur Leopard and the Alliance.

This Google map was created by the Snow Leopard Trust to locate and identify all the zoos in the world that host snow leopards.

This is not everyday that a new travel agency opens specialized in African wild life and nature (and its big cats). The end of 2008 brings us this event: Creation of Africa Exploration.

The founders went through other African adventures and escapades; This is a good warranty of a fully re-assuring experience and knowledge.

We’ll keep in touch.

Copyright (C) B.Tredez

Copyright (C) R.Rey

Christina Langman is a painter that does a lot of things around big cats and could well be described as a feline artist. You would think that this leads me to invite you to visit her gallery. Yes, I do. But not only that.

You should check her blog: Big Cat Art Blog. She describes her work and the way a painting comes to life brush after brush.

You should also visit other parts of her web life with such interesting things as her Colored Pencil Tutorial where you will find the detailled step-by-step instructions to go from blank paper to something like the following picture (and it’s much more complex than you’d think at first):

Snow Leopard's Eye

A different way to look at big cats.

This is the risk in this India sanctuary.

From Scientific American and Reuters.

Panthera is a genus of the family Felidae (the cats), which contains four well-known living species: the tiger, the lion, the leopard and the jaguar. The genus comprises about half of the big cats. One meaning of the word panther is to designate cats of this family. Only these four cat species have the anatomical changes enabling them to roar, due to a modification of the shape of their hyoid bone.

There have been many subspecies of leopard and lion suggested, however most of these are questionable. For example, recently, it has been proposed that all sub-saharan leopards and all sub-saharan lions belong to the same subspecies, as they do not have sufficient genetic distinction between them. Some prehistoric lion subspecies have been described from historical evidence and fossils. They may have been separate species.

However, here is a list of all these species:

Subfamily Pantherinae

Genus Panthera

• Panthera gombaszoegensis - European jaguar †
• Panthera leo - Lion
• Panthera leo atrox - American Lion or North American cave lion †
• Panthera leo azandica - North East Congo lion
• Panthera leo bleyenberghi - Katanga lion or Southwest African lion
• Panthera leo europaea - European lion †
• Panthera leo fossilis - Early Middle Pleistocene European cave lion †
• Panthera leo hollisteri - Congo lion
• Panthera leo krugeri - South African lion or Southeast African lion
• Panthera leo leo - Barbary lion †
• Panthera leo melanochaita - Cape lion †
• Panthera leo massaicus - Masai lion
• Panthera leo persica - Asiatic lion
• Panthera leo sinhaleyus - Sri Lanka lion or Ceylon lion †
• Panthera leo somaliensis - Somali lion
• Panthera leo spelaea - Eurasian cave lion †
• Panthera leo senegalensis - West African lion, or Senegal lion
• Panthera leo vereshchagini - East Siberian and Beringian cave lion †
• Panthera leo verneyi - Kalahari lion
• Panthera onca - Jaguar
• Panthera palaeosinensis - Pleistocene Chinese tiger/leopard †
• Panthera pardoides - primitive leopard †
• Panthera pardus - Leopard
• Panthera pardus adersi - Zanzibar Leopard †
• Panthera pardus delacouri - Indo-Chinese Leopard
• Panthera pardus fusca - Indian Leopard
• Panthera pardus jarvesi - Judean Desert Leopard
• Panthera pardus japonensis - North China Leopard
• Panthera pardus jarvisi - Sinai Leopard
• Panthera pardus kotiya - Sri Lanka Leopard
• Panthera pardus meas - Java Leopard
• Panthera pardus nimr - Arabian leopard or South Arabian Leopard
• Panthera pardus orientalis - Amur Leopard
• Panthera pardus panthera - Barbary Leopard
• Panthera pardus pardus - African Leopard
• Panthera pardus saxicolor - Persian Leopard
• Panthera pardus tulliana - Anatolian Leopard
• Panthera schaubi - a prehistoric short-faced leopard †
• Panthera tigris - Tiger
• Panthera tigris altaica - Siberian tiger or Amur tiger
• Panthera tigris amoyensis - South China tiger
• Panthera tigris balica - Balinese tiger †
• Panthera tigris corbetti - Indochinese tiger
• Panthera tigris jacksoni - Malayan tiger
• Panthera tigris sondaica - Javan tiger †
• Panthera tigris sumatran - Sumatran tiger
• Panthera tigris tigris - Bengal tiger
• Panthera tigris virgata - Caspian tiger †
• Panthera toscana - Tuscany lion or Tuscany jaguar †
• Panthera youngi - A prehistoric Chinese lion-like cat †

Nota bene: † denotes a subspecies that is disappeared.

Beware: The animal known as a black panther is not a separate species, but merely a mutant form of leopard and jaguar where the recessive gene that controls the spots has mutated so the creature appears all black.

These three young cheetah males are actually very powerful, hunt together, take advantage of any kind of possible prey.

In this case, one of them caught an isolated young gnu, just after the rain at the end of the afternoon. What happened seemed quite normal: They need to kill the prey (quite commonly by strangling it) and start eating (young and sensitive minds may not appreciate a quite gory natural scene of such a raw dinner). Since the cheetahs are not very powerful animals (they are fast but slender predators), they keep checking around them because once they are disturbed by other predators (usually hyenas) they leave the scene and do not return.

The two hyenas we see in the third photo did know about this kind of natural rule. They were arriving quite certain that they could easily grab the carcass and eat the kill so easily won. Unfortunately, these three cheetahs are definitely not playing by the book. As soon as the hyenas appear, one of them did not merely leave the kill, but ran to the hyenas and started chasing one of them, kicking it.

This led to a very unusual sight: Three hyenas, totally disoriented, lying low and whining a few feet from the carcass they could see, they could smell, but were not allowed to taste.
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After a month of November where I’ve shown a number of photos about cheetahs, I just wanted to provide a link to the excellent article in Wikipedia about Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus).