leopard

During all such cases when we were present they responded by giving repeated alarm calls, even when the leopard was already feeding on a carcass. We wanted to determine whether vervets knew enough about the behavior of leopards to recognize that, even in the absence of a leopard, a carcass in a tree signaled the same potential danger as did a leopard itself.

Sometimes there is confusion over the heraldic leopard, the question being—When is a leopard not a leopard? There is a theory that the lion and leopard were the same thing, and that they were named entirely depending on their attitude—thus if the animal was passant guardant it was a leopard, but when rampant it was a lion. Nowadays a leopard is the genuine spotted article and quite unmistakeable. Some people still speak, wrongly, of the leopards of England, but it does no great harm as it is an ancient expression and everybody knows what it means.