Research conducted in Tanzania has established that, unexpectedly, female and male leopards are active at different times of the day. The work was conducted by Natural History Museum of Denmark researcher Rasmus W Havøller in the dense rainforest-covered Udzungwa Mountains.

As the area is inaccessible to vehicles, he had to walk over an area of 2 500 km² in order to set up a network of 164 camera traps. These cameras collected more than 5 000 days of footage. This footage contradicted previously held assumptions about leopard behaviour.

“In the past, leopards were thought to be most active at dusk,” he pointed out. “Very surprisingly, the study shows that leopards hunt and move around at very different times of the day depending on whether they are females or males. Females are typically active from early through late morning, and then a bit before sunset, while males only really wake up at night.”

This was the first time that leopards in the Udzungwa Mountains had been studied. It was also the first time that gender differences in leopard activity patterns had been studied. In fact, there is a lot about leopards and their behaviour that is still unknown. Big cat studies have been focused on more endangered species, such as tigers, lions and cheetahs. But leopards are now also under a lot of pressure.

“Globally, things are going awfully for leopards, with sharp declines in their populations over the past 100 years,” he highlighted. “Furthermore, these animals aren’t monitored all that well. In part, this is because it is difficult. …Therefore, it might be that the leopards in Udzungwa present the last chance to study these creatures in a diversified environment, one that has only been lightly impacted by humans, before they end up becoming highly endangered.”

“The fact that female leopards are active well into the morning makes them more vulnerable to human activities, since this is when we as humans are most active,” stressed Havmøller. “To protect something, one needs to have some knowledge about it. During my study, we also discovered that a leopard from the rainforest doesn’t move into semi-arid areas or onto the savannah, or vice versa. It’s very strange. Why they don’t is the next big question.”