Clouded Leopard
Neofelis nebulosa
Summary 3
The clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) is a cat found from the Himalayan foothills through mainland Southeast Asia into China, and has been classified as Vulnerable in 2008 by IUCN. Its total population size is suspected to be fewer than 10,000 mature individuals, with a decreasing population trend, and no single population numbering more than 1,000 adults.
Description 4
The clouded leopard is named after the distinctive 'clouds' on its coat - ellipses partially edged in black, with the insides a darker colour than the background colour of the pelt (4). The base of the fur is a pale yellow to rich brown, making the darker cloud-like markings look even more distinctive (5). The limbs and underbelly are marked with large black ovals, and the back of its neck is conspicuously marked with two thick black bars (6). The clouded leopard is about the size of a small Labrador retriever with a body length of up to 90 cm, an intermediate size between the large and small cats of the world (4). It does, however, have an exceptionally long tail for balancing, which can be as long as the body itself, thick with black ring markings (2). In proportion to its body size it also has the largest canines of all the cats, a feature that has earned this cat the reputation of being the 'modern day sabre-tooth' (5). Well adapted to forest life, the clouded leopard also has relatively short legs and broad paws which make it excellent at climbing trees and creeping through thick forest (7).
Habitat 5
Clouded leopards occupy tropical forests at elevations up to 3000 meters. They are highly arboreal, using trees primarily for resting and also for hunting. However, they spend more time hunting on the ground than was originally believed. Sightings of clouded leopards occur most often in primary evergreen tropical forest but they have also been sighted in other habitats, such as secondary forest, logged forest, mangrove swamp, grassland, scrub land, dry tropical forest, and coastal hardwood forest.
Range elevation: 0 to 3000 m.
Habitat Regions: tropical ; terrestrial
Terrestrial Biomes: savanna or grassland ; forest ; rainforest ; scrub forest ; mountains
Wetlands: swamp
Sources and Credits
- (c) frank wouters, some rights reserved (CC BY), http://www.flickr.com/photos/90901507@N00/3750708431
- (c) Wikimedia Commons, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Neofelis_nebulosa.jpg
- Adapted by Brian Martin from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neofelis_nebulosa
- (c) Wildscreen, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/2608104
- (c) The Regents of the University of Michigan and its licensors, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/18661178
