The Arabian leopard (Panthera pardus nimr) is a leopard subspecies native to the Arabian Peninsula and classified as critically endangered by IUCN since 1996. Fewer than 200 animals remained in 2006. The effective population size is clearly below 250 mature individuals, with a continuing decline, and severely fragmented distribution with isolated subpopulations not larger than 50 mature individuals. The Arabian leopard is the smallest leopard subspecies.
The Arabian leopard was tentatively affirmed as a distinct subspecies by genetic analysis from a single captive leopard from Israel of south Arabian origin, which appeared most closely related to the African leopard.
Read more about Arabian Leopard: Characteristics, Distribution and Habitat, Ecology and Behaviour, Threats, Conservation
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“O animal excellence,
Take pterodactyl flight
Fire-winged into the air
And find your lair
With cunning sense
On some Arabian bight....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“There are other letters for the child to learn than those which Cadmus invented. The Spaniards have a good term to express this wild and dusky knolwedge, Grammatica parda, tawny grammar, a kind of mother-wit derived from that same leopard to which I have referred.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)