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Leopard
Elegant, secretive, shrewd and the strongest climber of the Big 5, the leopard is a cunning, nocturnal hunter.
It has been noted in popular culture that a leopard cannot change its spots. Visitors to the Kruger National Park, however, are able to view these magnificent creatures and decipher between fact and fiction for themselves. This member of the big 5 belongs to a biological family of cats known as the Felidae. Felids are strict carnivores, with the Leopard being the smallest of the four cats in their group; the other three are the tiger, lion, and jaguar. Physically leopards tend to resemble jaguars, but their bodies are usually smalleron and they weigh slightly less; however, its fur is marked with rosettes, which lack internal spots unlike that of the jaguar.
When it comes to their diets, leopards in the Kruger National Park generally consume average-sized animals, such as the impala 78% of the time. However, because they engage in opportunistic hunting, they will eat anything from a dung beetle to a giant male eland. While hunting, the leopard tends to stalk its prey in silence before pouncing on them at the last moment and killing them with a quick bite; from there, they usually prefer to hide their kill in dense vegetation or even drag it up into a tree. Because of their climbing abilities, visitors to the Kruger Park might be fortunate enough to observe them relaxing on a tree branch during one of their game drives.
Depending on the region, leopards may mate all year round or seasonally with female leopards having a gestation period between 95 and 105 days, before a cub is born. The mother will birth and make a den in a cave or crevice amongst boulders before giving birth to between 2 and 4 cubs. Infant mortality is high though, and only 1 or 2 cubs usually survive beyond infancy. Leopards tend to be solitary creatures, and aside from mating, interactions between them are infrequent.