JunoActive Celebrates the Beautiful Black Leopard

Celebrating our newest print, Deep Leopard, we thought you’d enjoy some interesting facts about real Black Leopards.

Black Leopards are a rare melanistic variant of spotted leopards.  Known to live in Asia, the last sighting in Africa was in Kenya in 2019.  These beautiful cats live in SW China, Burma, Nepal, South India, Indonesia, and Malaysia. 

Black Leopards are able to live in a wide variety of habitats due to a varied diet of many types of animals; mammals, reptiles and birds.  They have great strength and can kill prey up to 10 times their own weight.

About 11% of leopards will have black coloring with “rosette” spots due to a recessive gene.  No big cats are solid-colored and even black leopards have spots that can be seen in full sunshine.

Leopards live 12 to 15 years in the wild. They are reclusive and nocturnal.  Although smaller than other members of the Panthera genus, they have massive skulls and powerful jaw muscles.  They are the largest cats to climb trees.

Black Leopards can hear five times more sounds than humans, even the ultrasonic squeaks of mice.  Talk about fast, these cats can run over 35 miles per hour, leap over 20 feet horizontally and 10 feet high.

All big cats are under pressure; from loss of habitat, from poachers who sell their coats or whiskers, and by poison from ranchers trying to protect their livestock.

To learn more about the magnificent Black Leopard, and many other wild animals that need protection, check out the World Wildlife Foundation at worldwild.org.