Prey preferences of the leopard (Panthera pardus)

This contribution to the Hayward prey-preference series quantified leopard diet selectivity across Africa and Asia using kill records weighted by prey abundance. Leopards showed a preferred prey weight of roughly 10-40 kg, significantly favoring species such as impala, bushbuck, common duiker and chital, while their extreme dietary breadth allowed them to exploit everything from rodents to subadult large ungulates. The study highlighted the leopard's remarkable plasticity, which lets it persist in human-dominated landscapes where larger competitors are extirpated. By deriving a preferred-prey body-mass window and a list of significantly preferred and avoided species, the work supports conservation planning, conflict mitigation and comparisons of dietary overlap with sympatric carnivores.