Chinese leopard


The term Chinese leopard refers to any of the following three leopard subspecies occurring in China:
Several leopard zoological specimens from South and East Asia were described between the late 18th and early 20th centuries:
Leopards in southern China were subsumed to P. p. delacouri following phylogeographic analysis in 1996. In 2001, results of a genetic analysis indicated that P. p. delacouri and P. p. japonensis are contiguous, and that the latter is contiguous with P. p. orientalis.
Chinese authors used P. p. fusca as a synonym for P. p. delacouri.
In 2017, the Cat Classification Taskforce of the Cat Specialist Group subsumed P. p. japonensis to P. p. orientalis, thereby recognising leopards in northern China as belonging to P. p. orientalis, while accepting the possibility of leopards in southern China as belonging to P. p. delacouri.

Distribution

Camera-trap surveys conducted between 2002 and 2009 in 11 nature reserves in southern China recorded leopards only in Changqing National Nature Reserve in the Qinling Mountains, but neither in Sichuan's Wolong Nature Reserve nor in other protected areas in Sichuan.
Contemporary records of leopards exist from protected areas in the provinces Hebei, Henan and Shanxi and Ningxia. No leopard was recorded during surveys in Gansu province. Whether leopards still occur in Qinghai province is uncertain. It has probably been extirpated in Hunan, Hubei, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangxi and Jiangxi provinces. It is listed as nationally Critically Endangered, but receives little attention from Chinese wildlife biologists and conservationists.

Ecology

Contemporary ecological data on habitat use and requirements of leopards in China does not exist.
Results of surveys in Wolong Nature Reserve in the 1980s indicate that leopards might have attacked giant pandas.
Attacks on humans have also been reported, though rare.