Built for the shadows
Leopards are solitary and mostly nocturnal, and their spotted coat, rosettes rather than the cheetah's solid dots, breaks up their outline in dappled light. In the Serengeti they favour the riverine forests and the rocky kopjes where they can watch the plains from cover.
Their signature is strength. A leopard will drag an antelope its own weight or more up into the branches, out of reach of lions and hyenas, and feed on it for days.
Status
The species is listed as Vulnerable. Leopards have been lost from a large share of their historic range, and some subspecies, the Amur and Arabian leopards among them, are Critically Endangered. In East Africa they persist best inside the big protected ecosystems.
