How many species of leopard are there?

A page setting out the six species of leopard. For a long time there was confusion over the name of the leopard. I’ll write about that some other time but the Latin, scientific name is made up of the now obsolete names of this wild cat species: Pathera pardus (an amalgamation of “panther” and “pard”).

Leopard
Leopard. Photo: SameeraMJ

The chart below shows how many species of leopard there are in the cat family today. The first in the list is the cat which we refer to as the leopard or common leopard.

Leopard Species Scientific Name
LeopardPanthera pardus
American Leopard (Jaguar) (South and Central America)panthera onca
Snow Leopard (or Ounce) (Central Asia)Uncia uncia
Hunting Leopard (now Cheetah) (Africa and Asia)Acinonyx jubatus
Clouded Leopard (Asia)Neofelis nebulosa
Sunda Clouded Leopard (Sumatra and Borneo)Neofelis diardi

 

You can read about various aspects these wild cat species on PoC, in detail. Please use the search facility below:


The source of the information on this page is: Leopard by Desmond Morris published by Reaktion Books Ltd. ISBN 978-1-78023-279-9

2 thoughts on “How many species of leopard are there?”

  1. The author of the best comment will receive an Amazon gift of their choice at Christmas! Please comment as they can add to the article and pass on your valuable experience.
  2. If you mean that the leopard – all the species of leopard – are under threat in one way or another, it is because the human wants it like that. You know why the wild cats are under threat. I hope you are okay.

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