#himalayan mountains

Clouded Leopard

Despite the clouded leopard’s name, it is not closely related to the leopard and is the smallest of the big cats. The clouded leopard inhabits the Himalayan mountains and various parts of Asia.

Spending their lives in solitude, the clouded leopard spends most of it’s days in trees and hunts at night. Monitoring the cat is difficult because of their habitat being within densely populated trees. Because of this, not much is known about their behavior in the wild.

Mating habits are very interesting as males are very aggressive during their encounters. So much so, that they bite the neck of the female severing her vertebrae. When given birth, the male is not included in raising the kittens.

The clouded leopard is threatened do to habitat deforestation, commercial poaching, and being used in traditional Asian medicines(There is no scientific proof that these medicines are beneficial.)

Photo by: jnort002 via Flickr