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56 free Leopard trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This leopard trivia quiz runs from the basics to the genuinely obscure. It covers the leopard's biology (why its rosettes differ from a jaguar's, how it kills, how far it can jump, why it hauls carcasses into trees), its nine subspecies from the tiny Arabian leopard to the critically endangered Amur leopard, and its odd corners: leopons, strawberry leopards, the recessive gene behind black panthers and the man-eaters Jim Corbett hunted in India. It also digs into the leopard in human culture: Dionysus and his leopard-drawn chariot, the Benin oba, the Ashanti leopard stool, Kipling's Just So Stories, Bringing Up Baby, and why the heraldic leopard looks exactly like a lion. Every question was checked against a primary reference (mostly the Wikipedia articles on the leopard and its subspecies) before publication, and each carries a citation. Play it for fun, use it for a pub quiz round, or take it after our Big Cats quiz to see how the leopard stacks up against its Panthera cousins.
30 of 56 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the leopard's scientific name?
Panthera pardus
Panthera onca is the jaguar, Panthera leo the lion and Acinonyx jubatus the cheetah; the leopard is one of just five living Panthera species.
Q 02The ancient Greek word 'pardos', the second half of 'leopardos', meant what?
Spotted
The first half, 'leon', means lion, so the name literally reads 'spotted lion'.
Q 03The Greek word 'leopardos' originally referred to which animal, not the leopard at all?
The cheetah
The ancients had trouble telling the spotted cats apart, and the name eventually settled on the wrong one.
Q 04Who first gave the leopard a scientific name, Felis pardus, in 1758?
Carl Linnaeus
Oken later coined the genus Panthera in 1816, but his name was not widely accepted until the 20th century.
Q 05The leopard is the sister taxon to a clade made up of which two other cats?
Lion and jaguar
Chemical-secretion studies also point to the leopard being closest to the lion, and their mitochondrial genomes suggest an ancient hybridisation with snow leopards.
Q 06Cave paintings of leopards in which French cave are indirect evidence that they once roamed Europe?
Chauvet
Fossils back this up: leopard bones dating to the Pleistocene have been dug up at some 40 sites across Europe.
Q 07What is the name given to the offspring of a male leopard and a female lion?
Leopon
The cubs, born in 1959 and 1961, were spotted and bigger than a leopard cub; attempts to mate one with a tigress failed.
Q 08In which country was a male leopard successfully crossbred with a female lion at Hanshin Park in 1953?
Japan
Hanshin Park is in Nishinomiya, near Osaka; the hybrid cubs became a minor sensation.
Q 09A melanistic (dark-coated) leopard is commonly known as what?
Black panther
The rosettes are still there under the black; you can see them in the right light.
Q 10Melanism (the black coat) is inherited in leopards as what kind of trait?
Recessive
In jaguars it is the opposite: black coats there come from a dominant allele.
Q 11A rare reddish leopard morph recorded in South Africa's Madikwe Game Reserve is nicknamed what?
'Strawberry'
The condition is erythrism, and its cause in leopards is still poorly understood; it has also been called the 'pink panther'.
Q 12Among all wild cats, the leopard holds which distinction?
The widest distribution
It ranges across Africa and Asia from rainforest to steppe, though populations are fragmented and declining almost everywhere.
Q 13By roughly what percentage is the leopard's range in West Africa estimated to have declined?
95%
In the Sahara the loss is even worse, an estimated 97%.
Q 21Hyenas in Sabi Sand are the culprits of up to what share of stolen leopard kills?
50%
Storing carcasses in trees is the leopard's main defence against them.
Q 22In Asia, besides the tiger, which pack-living predator dominates leopards during encounters?
The dhole
The three coexist by taking different-sized prey: in Nagarhole a leopard kill averaged 37.6 kg against 91.5 kg for tigers.
Q 23How long is a leopard's gestation?
90 to 105 days
Litters are usually two to four cubs, and 41-50% of them do not survive their first year.
Q 14How do a jaguar's rosettes differ from a leopard's?
They are darker with smaller spots inside
Leopard rosettes also vary by region: circular in East Africa, squarish in southern Africa and larger in Asia.
Q 15How high can a leopard jump vertically?
3 m
About the height of a basketball hoop, from a standing start.
Q 16The largest prey ever reportedly killed by a leopard was a 900 kg male of which antelope?
Eland
That is roughly ten to twenty times the weight of the leopard that killed it; leopards normally prefer prey of 10-40 kg.
Q 17A leopard was once seen hauling a young animal weighing nearly 125 kg up 5.7 m into a tree. What animal?
A giraffe
Its powerful jaw muscles let it drag carcasses heavier than itself into trees, out of reach of lions and hyenas.
Q 18How does a leopard typically kill large prey?
Strangling it by the throat
Small prey gets a bite to the back of the neck instead; the leopard stalks to within about 5 m before it pounces.
Q 19Of Africa's large predators, the leopard is dominant over only which one?
The cheetah
Everyone else in the guild has size, pack numbers or both on their side.
Q 20In Sabi Sand Game Reserve, which animal can be responsible for about 22% of leopard deaths?
Lions
They also have a high success rate at fetching leopard kills out of trees.
Q 24How long do leopard cubs typically remain with their mother?
18 to 24 months
After leaving her, sibling cubs may keep travelling together for months.
Q 25The oldest recorded leopard, a captive female, died at what age?
24
In the wild the average lifespan is 12 to 17 years.
Q 26How does the IUCN Red List classify the leopard?
Vulnerable
The species as a whole is Vulnerable, but individual subspecies such as the Amur and Arabian leopards are Critically Endangered.
Q 27Killing leopards for sport is banned in Afghanistan and in which African country?
Botswana
In 11 other sub-Saharan countries, trade is limited to the skins and body parts of 2,560 individuals.
Q 28By the 2010s, the leopard was estimated to occupy what share of its historical range?
25%
Habitat fragmentation, conflict with herders, trophy hunting and poaching for skins all keep pushing it back.
Q 29In Greek mythology the leopard was a symbol of which god?
Dionysus
He wore its skin and rode leopards; in one myth two of them rescued him from pirates.
Q 30In the Benin Empire the leopard symbolised the power of which ruler?
The oba
The leopard was considered king of the forest, so it appears constantly in Benin engravings and sculpture.