Leopard

The leopard Panthera pardus is one of the five "big cats" in the genus Panthera. It is a member of the family Felidae with a wide range in regions of sub-Saharan Africa, West Asia, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia to Siberia. Fossil records found in Italy suggest that in the Pleistocene it ranged as far as Europe. Compared to other members of Felidae, the leopard has relatively short legs and a long body with a large skull. It is similar in appearance to the jaguar, but is smaller and more lightly built. Its fur is marked with rosettes similar to those of the jaguar, but the leopard's rosettes are smaller and more densely packed, and do not usually have central spots as the jaguar's do. Both leopards and jaguars that are melanistic are known as black panthers.

The leopard's success in the wild is due to its well camouflaged fur; its opportunistic hunting behaviour, broad diet, and strength to move heavy carcasses into trees; its ability to adapt to various habitats ranging from rainforest to steppe and including arid and montane areas; and to run at speeds up to 58 kilometres per hour (36 mph). It is listed as near threatened on the IUCN Red List because leopard populations are declining in large parts of their range. They are threatened by habitat loss and pest control. Their habitats are fragmented and they are illegally hunted so that their pelts may be sold in wildlife trade for medicinal practices and decoration. 
They have been extirpated in Hong Kong,Singapore, Kuwait, Syria, Libya, Tunisia and most likely Morocco. The leopard is one of the five extant species of the genus Panthera, which also includes the jaguar P. onca, the lion P. leo, the snow leopard P. uncia; sometimes placed in Uncia, a separate genus of its own and the tiger P. tigris. 
This genus, along with the genus Neofelis - which consists of the clouded leopard N. nebulosa and the Sunda clouded leopard N. dardi - forms the subfamily Pantherinae of the Felidae. The leopard was first described by Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae (1758). Linnaeus named the leopard as Felis pardus, placing it in the genusFelis along with the domestic cat, the jaguar, the Eurasian lynx, the lion, the ocelot and the tiger. In the 18th and 19th centuries, most naturalists and taxonomists followed his example. In 1816, Lorenz Oken proposed a definition of the genusPanthera, with a subgenus Panthera using F. pardus as a type species. Oken's classification, however, was not widely accepted, and until the early 20th century continued using Felis or Leopardus when describing leopard subspecies. In 1916, British zoologist Reginald Innes Pocock accorded Panthera generic rank defining Panthera pardus as species. The leopard is part of the Panthera lineage, one of the eight lineages of Felidae. This lineage comprises the species ofPanthera and Neofelis. The clouded leopard diverged first from the lineage, followed by the snow leopard. Subsequent branching began two to three million years ago, but the details of this are disputed.  A 2006 phylogenetic study by Warren E. Johnson (of the National Cancer Institute) and colleagues, based on nDNA and mtDNA analysis, showed that the leopard is sister to two clades within Panthera - one consisting of the tiger and the snow leopard, and the other of the lion and the jaguar. This was seconded by a 2009 study by Lars Werdelin and colleagues. However, the results obtained in a 2010 study by Brian W. Davis (of the Texas A&M University) and colleagues and a 2011 study by Ji H. Mazák (of the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum) and colleagues showed a swapping between the leopard and the jaguar in the cladogram. Results of a 2001 phylogenetic analysis of chemical secretions amongst cats suggested, however, that the leopard is closely related to the lion.