The Big Cat Blog

How to tell apart cheetahs, leopards and jaguars.

Cheetahs are the most distinctive of the three. They are very lean in appearance, with long tails. They have black “tear marks” that run from the inner corner of their eye down the side of their nose.  Their coat has plain spots:

Leopards are more muscular looking, with shorter legs. Their coat features rosettes:

Jaguars are bigger still and have a more stocky appearance, with a certain squareness to their head. Their coats feature small spots inside their rosettes:

depress-ion-deactivated20110321 asked: how much tigers, lions, cheetah, leopards, and jaguars left in the wild?

Tigers
Researchers think just 3,000 to 3,500 tigers remain in the wild. That’s a 50% decline since 1998, the last Year of the Tiger.

Since the 1930s, three of the nine subspecies of tiger have gone completely extinct. The South China Tiger is the most rare of the remaining subspecies, with experts putting the number of individuals left at around 20.

Lions
Estimates of lions in Africa put figures around 20,000; down from 450,000 in the 1940’s. The Asiatic Lion, which is now only found in the Gir Forest of India, has an estimated wild population of just over 400 individuals.

Cheetahs
There are approximately 12,400 cheetahs in Africa. Asiatic cheetahs have gone extinct in India, with the remaining 50-60 wild individuals found mostly in Iran.

Leopards
There are no reliable estimates of population size in Africa. Many populations within Africa are believed to be increasing, though they have gone extinct in some regions. Several Asiatic subspecies of leopard are considered endangered, including the Amur Leopard, with only 30-35 individuals in the wild.

Jaguars
Jaguars are predominantly found scattered throughout remote areas of South and Central America. Estimates on the exact numbers are hard to find, though their conservation status is listed as Near Threatened.

Declining big cat populations are attributed to habitat loss and human conflict.

Source: International Union for Conservation of Nature