Leopards easily adapt to a wide variety of habitats, altitudes, and temperatures, from high mountains to deserts to rainforests. The largest leopards are named after the regions where they’re found, like the North African leopard and the Persian leopard. All can live without drinking water for as long as 10 days, getting the moisture they need from their food. All they need is some brush, thick vegetation, caves, or rocky terrain for hiding and hunting. Leopards usually rest during the heat of the day in bushes, rocks, caves, or even up in a tree, depending upon their habitat. Of the large cats, leopards are the mostarboreal; they have long tails to help them to balance on narrow tree branches.
Unlike most cats, leopards are strong swimmers and are one of the few cats that like water, although they are not asaquaticas tigers. They are great athletes, able to run in bursts up to 36 miles an hour (58 kilometers per hour), leap 20 feet (6 meters) forward in a single bound, and jump ten feet (3 meters) straight up.
Leopards have incredible strength and can climb as high as 50 feet (15 meters) up a favorite tree while holding a fresh kill in its mouth, even one larger and heavier than themselves! They stash food up high so other predators such as lions or hyenas can’t get it. This way, leopards can return to eat more at a later time. One leopard was spotted dragging a 220-pound (100 kilograms) young giraffe into heavy brush to hide it. Leopards are usuallynocturnal, resting by day and hunting at night.
Stories from both Africa and Asia tell of the leopard’s ability to enter a village and snatch a sleeping dog without being detected. The leopard is a champion hunter and has a variety of stealth attacks that catch its prey off guard. From dropping on prey out of trees to stalking prey at waterholes or in dry grasses, often slinking along on the belly, a leopard doesn’t have a predictable pattern to hunting.
The cat uses its vision, keen hearing, and whiskers, rather than its sense of smell, while hunting. The whiskers face forward when the leopard is walking and move back when the cat is sniffing; they stick out sideways when the leopard is resting. The big cat stalks and pounces rather than chases its prey over long distances. It grabs or swats prey, usingretractableclaws. Prey is killed with a bite to the throat. Leopards are carnivores and eat any meat item they can find: monkeys, baboons, rodents, snakes, amphibians, large birds, fish, antelope, cheetah cubs, warthogs, and porcupines.
