🐾 Clouded Leopard

Clouded Leopard

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Scientific name: Neofelis nebulosa
Family & relatives: A member of the cat family, it forms its own genus and sits between the big cats and small cats.
How to spot it: Look for large cloud-shaped blotches ringed in dark on a tawny coat, plus a very long tail.

Size: About 60 to 110 cm long in the body, with a tail nearly as long as the body.
Weight: Usually weighs 11 to 23 kg, with males larger than females.
Body & adaptations: Flexible ankles that rotate backward and a long tail let it climb head-first down trunks and balance on branches.
Top speed: Not a distance sprinter, it can dash roughly 40 km/h in short bursts through the forest.
Strength: It has the longest canine teeth relative to skull size of any living cat, and can hang upside down from branches.
Senses: Keen night vision and sharp hearing help it hunt in dim, dense forest.
Growing up: Kittens are born blind and helpless, gain climbing skill by a few months, and reach adulthood near two years.

Habitat: Lives in tropical and subtropical evergreen forests, from lowlands to foothills.
Where in the world: Found across the Himalayan foothills, Southeast Asia, and southern China.
Territory: Roams a home range of roughly 30 to 40 square kilometers, patrolled largely alone.

Diet: A pure meat-eater that gets most of its water from the prey it catches.
Favorite foods: Hunts monkeys, deer, wild pigs, birds, squirrels and other small mammals.
How it hunts: An ambush hunter that stalks quietly and may pounce from the trees or the ground.

How it moves: Superb climber and leaper, equally at home walking along branches or on the forest floor.
When it is active: Mostly active at dawn, dusk, and night.
Family life: Solitary except for mothers with cubs or brief mating pairs.
How it talks: Communicates with soft chuffs, growls, meows, and scent marks left on trees.
Babies: After about 85 to 95 days of gestation, the female bears a litter of usually two to four kittens that she raises alone.

Role in nature: A mid-sized forest predator that controls monkey and small-mammal numbers; adults have few natural enemies but may fall to tigers or leopards.
Conservation: Listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN, threatened by deforestation and poaching for its skin, teeth, and bones.
Dangers: Main causes of death are poaching, habitat loss, and snares set for other animals.

How long it lives: Lives around 11 years in the wild and up to about 17 years in captivity.
In our culture: Its beautiful pelt made it a target of the fur trade, and it features in the folklore of several Asian cultures.
Where to see it: Best seen in zoos with breeding programs, such as the Smithsonian National Zoo, and hard to spot in wild reserves in Thailand and Borneo.
Fun fact: It can climb down a tree trunk head-first and even hang from a branch by its back feet, like a furry acrobat.

Video: Pixabay · Photos: Wikimedia Commons & Pixabay