Panthera pardus adersi

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Kingdom Animalia

 

Photograph of Zanzibar leopard (mounted specimen) in the Zanzibar Museum taken (and copyright) by Helle V. Goldman and Jon Winther-Hansen in 2003. This image has been released under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Phylum Chordata
Class Mammalia
Order Carnivora
Family Felidae
Subfamily Pantherinae
Genus Panthera
Species Panthera pardus
Subspecies Panthera pardus adersi
Authority (Pocock, 1932)
 
English Name Zanzibar Leopard
Chinese Name 桑给巴尔岛亚种
Dutch Name Zanzibar Luipaard
French Name Léopard du Zanzibar
German Name Sansibar-Leopard
Italian Name Leopardo di Zanzibar
Polish Name Lampart Zanzibarski
Portuguese Name Leopardo-de-zanzibar
Spanish Name Leopardo de Zanzíbar
Swedish Name Zanzibarleopard
Turkish Name Zangibar leoparı
 
Synonyms Panthera pardus tenius
 
Comments The Zanzibar leopard is a little-known leopard subspecies assumed by some authorities to be extinct. The correct status of the leopard on Zanzibar is still controversial. (Goldman & Walsh 2002)
 
Taxonomy It has been suggested that there may be as many as 30 extant subspecies of the Leopard. However, modern taxonomic analyses have demonstrated that most likely only 8 or 9 subspecies are valid (Wikipedia contributors 2007). The revised subspecies are Panthera pardus pardus, P. p. nimr, P. p. saxicolor, P. p. fusca, P. p. kotiya, P. p. delacouri, P. p. japonensis, P. p. orientalis and P. p. melas. The Zanzibar Leopard is included in the extant subspecies Panthera pardus pardus. However, because of limited sampling of African populations, the 9 revised subspecies may be an underestimate of modern phylogeographic population structure. (Miththapala et al. 1996; Uphyrkina et al. 2001) Therefore the isolated Zanzibar Leopard (Panthera pardus adersi) could still be considered a valid subspecies.
 
Characteristics The Zanzibar Leopard is a smaller leopard than its continental relatives. Its more numerous rosettes partially disintegrate into spots. (Wikipedia contributors 2007)
 
Range & Habitat Today, leopards, Panthera pardus, are widely distributed across southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa (Miththapala et al. 1996). 

The Zanzibar Leopard (Panthera pardus adersi) is endemic to Unguja Island in the Zanzibar archipelago, part of Tanzania (Wikipedia contributors 2007).

Image: map with distribution range of the Zanzibar leopard (in red). Created by Peter Maas for The Extinction Website. The copyright holder of this work has released it into the public domain. This applies worldwide.
 
History & Population The Zanzibar Leopard is thought to have evolved in isolation from the African Leopard since at least the end of the last ice age, when the island was separated from mainland Tanzania by rising sea levels. (Wikipedia contributors 2007)

Until Zanzibar revolution in 1964, when the Sultan was overthrown and Zanzibar merged with the mainland state of Tanganyika to form Tanzania, the Zanzibar leopard was well distributed on the island, especially in the south, east and north. After the revolution, the government initiated a campaign to eradicate the leopard. This was apparently in an effort to prevent the occasional killing of live stock and also to eliminate the leopard as a source of witchcraft. The campaign was very successful and a large number of leopard were killed, mainly trapping them. (Wilson 2005)

In 1996 a survey of local practices, beliefs and knowledge about the leopard was conducted on Unguja Island. Data were collected through interviews with Zanzibaris in villages across the island and from official documents (records of the National Hunters). The interviews yielded reports of yearly sightings of leopards between 1990 to 1996, and the National Hunters' records documented killed leopards in each year from 1985 to 1995. After these results it was concluded that the Zanzibar Leopard was probably surviving on the island in 1996. (Goldman & Walsh 2002)

However, later efforts undertaken by other researchers and involving camera traps, audio playbacks and searches for leopard sign failed to find physical evidence of Zanzibar Leopards. (Goldman & Walsh 2002)
 
Extinction Causes Increasing conflict between people and leopards in the 20th century led to their demonization and determined attempts to exterminate them (Wikipedia contributors 2007). 
 
Conservation Attempts Serious attention was not paid to the Zanzibar leopard's plight until the mid-1990s, by which time some authorities were already listing it as extinct (Nowell & Jackson 1996). A leopard conservation programme was drafted by the CARE-funded Jozani-Chwaka Bay Conservation Project, but abandoned in 1997 when wildlife researchers failed to find evidence for the leopard's continuing presence in and around Jozani Forest (Stuart & Stuart 1997). Local wildlife officials, however, have remained more optimistic about the leopard's survival, and some Zanzibaris have proposed approaching alleged leopard keepers in order to ask them to display their leopards to paying visitors. Villagers sometimes offer to take tourists or researchers to see "domesticated" leopards in return for cash, but so far none of these "kept leopard chases" has been known to end in a successful sighting (Swai 1983; Marshall 1994; Selkow 1995). (Wikipedia contributors 2007)
 
Museum Specimens Only five skins have been located in museums, including the type specimen in the Natural History Museum, London, and a much-faded mounted specimen in the Zanzibar Museum (Walsh & Goldman 2003; Wikipedia contributors 2007).
 
Relatives The closest living relatives are the other leopard subspecies, namely the African Leopard (Panthera pardus pardus), Arabian Leopard (Panthera pardus nimr), Persian Leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor), Indian Leopard (Panthera pardus fusca), Sri Lankan Leopard (Panthera pardus kotiya), Indo-Chinese Leopard (Panthera pardus delacouri), North China Leopard (Panthera pardus japonensis), Amur Leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis), Javan Leopard (Panthera pardus melas). These nine subspecies are the revived subspecies (Miththapala et al. 1996; Uphyrkina et al. 2001).

Photo: Leopard in Serengeti, Tanzania. The photograph has been released under the GNU Free Documentation License by Jan Erkamp. For more information you can visit: Wikimedia Commons.

After the revision, the Zanzibar Leopard (Panthera pardus adersi) has been included into the African Leopard (Panthera pardus pardus) together with the following traditional African subspecies: North African Leopard (Panthera pardus panthera), Cape Leopard (Panthera pardus melanotica), Central African Leopard (Panthera pardus shortridgei), Congo Leopard (Panthera pardus ituriensis), East African Leopard (Panthera pardus suahelica), Eritrean Leopard (Panthera pardus antinorii), Somalian Leopard (Panthera pardus nanopardus), Ugandan Leopard (Panthera pardus chui), West African Leopard (Panthera pardus reichinowi), and the West African Forest Leopard (Panthera pardus leopardus). (Wikipedia contributors 2007)

The following traditional subspecies are today usually included in the Persian Leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor), namely the Anatolian Leopard (Panthera pardus tulliana), Baluchistan Leopard (Panthera pardus sindica), Caucasus Leopard (Panthera pardus ciscaucasica), Central Persian Leopard (Panthera pardus dathei), and the Sinai Leopard (Panthera pardus jarvisi). The Kashmir Leopard (Panthera pardus millardi) and the Nepal Leopard (Panthera pardus pernigra) are today usually included in the Indian Leopard (Panthera pardus fusca). Europe was also once home to a leopard subspecies, namely the prehistoric European leopard (Panthera pardus sickenbergi). (Wikipedia contributors 2007)
 
Links Zanzibar Leopard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 

References

(Complete website)

 Goldman, H.V. & Walsh, M.T. (2002). Is the Zanzibar leopard (Panthera pardus adersi) extinct? Journal of East African Natural History Vol. 91 (1&2) 2002: pp. 15-25.

Marshall, S. (1994). The Status of the Zanzibar Leopard. SIT Tanzania & Commission for Natural Resources, Zanzibar.

Miththapala, Sriyanie, John Seidensticker, Stephen J. O'Brien (1996). Phylogeographic Subspecies Recognition in Leopards (Panthera pardus): Molecular Genetic Variation Conservation Biology 10 (4), 1115–1132.

Nowell, K. & Jackson, P. (1996). Wild Cats. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN.

Selkow, B. (1995). A Survey of Villager Perceptions of the Zanzibar Leopard. SIT Tanzania & Commission for Natural Resources, Zanzibar.

Stuart, C. & Stuart, T. (1997). A Preliminary Faunal Survey of South-eastern Unguja (Zanzibar) with Special Emphasis on the Leopard Panthera pardus adersi. African-Arabian Wildlife Research Centre, Loxton, South Africa.

Swai, I.S. (1983). Wildlife Conservation Status in Zanzibar. Unpublished M.Sc. dissertation, University of Dar es Salaam.

Uphyrkina, Olga, Warren E. Johnson, Howard Quigley, Dale Miquelle, Laurie Marker, Mitchel Bush, Stephen J. O'Brien (2001). Phylogenetics, genome diversity and origin of modern leopard, Panthera pardus. Molecular Ecology 10 (11), 2617–2633.

Walsh, M.T. & Goldman, H.V. (2003). "The Zanzibar Leopard Between Science and Cryptozoology". Nature East Africa 33 (1/2): 14-16.

Wikipedia contributors, "Zanzibar Leopard," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zanzibar_Leopard&oldid=131710316 (accessed June 24, 2007).

Wilson, Vivian, J. 2005. Duikers of Africa: Masters of the African Forest Floor. ISBN-10: 0620337737.

Last updated: 18th December 2008.

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