8 Stunning Pictures Showing The Beauty Of Wild Big Cats
Lions, and tigers, and pumas—oh my.
Humans have long been fascinated with big cats, the eight largest of Earth’s 37 wild cat species.
“Of all the great creatures, they are perhaps the most magnificent, iconic, and fabled,” says conservation scientist Luke Dollar, a National Geographic Emerging Explorer.
Their size and power makes big cats top predators, helping maintain the balance of the ecosystem by controlling prey populations, says Dollar.
1. The African lion (Panthera leo) is the only wild cat that lives in large family groups. Two thousand years ago, more than a million lions roamed the earth, but today, African and Asiatic lions together number fewer than 30,000 individuals.
2. Revered as a god by the ancient Aztec and Maya, the jaguar (Panthera onca) is the most powerful predator in Central and South America and the third largest cat on Earth, after tigers and lions.
3.The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) is the fastest mammal and can sprint over 60 miles (96 kilometers) per hour. Fewer than 10,000 animals remain in eastern and southwestern Africa and Iran.
4. The snow leopard (Panthera uncia) lives in the Himalaya and surrounding ranges of Central Asia. In November 1971, National Geographic was the first to publish photos of the animal taken in the wild.
5. Weighing up to 600 pounds (270 kilograms), the tiger (Panthera tigris) is the world’s largest cat. Since the 1930s, three tiger subspecies have gone extinct, though the Malayan (above) and several other subspecies hang on in Asia.
6. The leopard (Panthera pardus), native to Africa and Asia, is so strong and comfortable in trees, it hauls its kills onto the branches. They’re also powerful swimmers, sometimes dipping into the water to hunt fish or crabs.
7.Ranging from Canada to Chile, Puma concolor—the puma, cougar, mountain lion, or panther—goes by many names. It’s no surprise: the puma has the largest geographic range of any Western Hemisphere land mammal.
8.Though the clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) of Asia is the smallest of the big cats—males may reach 50 pounds (23 kilograms)—it has canine teeth as long as a tiger’s. They’re also good climbers and can hang upside down beneath large branches.
Story inspiration: NationalGeographic