Meeting the Clouded Leopard

 Hello friends! Now I am going to write the first article in my blog. I hope you like it as much as I like to write it, here it goes!

I think that everybody has a favourite animal, and I have it too. I like cats in general but the one that caught me since the moment I saw it for the first time on TV is the Clouded leopard. It is a fantastic animal, so agile, so fast and so elegant... but not so abundant. 

Look at the definition that I have taken from the Wikipedia.

The clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) is a cat found from the Himalayan foothills through mainland Southeast Asia into China. Its total population size is suspected to be fewer than 10,000 mature individuals, with a decreasing population trend, and no single population numbering more than 1,000 adults.

The clouded leopard is considered to form an evolutionary link between the big cats and the small cats. The hair of the Clouded Leopard is ochreous ground colour with some cloud shaped black spots. It weigh around 23 kg. Females vary in head-to-body length from 68.6 to 94 cm, with a tail 61 to 82 cm long. Males are larger at 81 to 108 cm with a tail 74 to 91 cm long. They have large and sharp teeth. 

Clouded leopards can be found from the Himalayan foothills in Nepal and India to Myanmar, Bhutan, Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, Indochina, and in China south of theYangtze river.

Now I'll give you some other information about this wonderful cat.

Clouded leopards are the most talented climbers among the cats. In captivity, they have been observed to climb down vertical tree trunks head first, and hang on to branches with their hind paws bent around branchings of tree limbs. When jumping down, they keep hanging on to a branch this way until the very last moment. They can easily jump up to 1.2 m high.

Now you know something about this animal I am going to explain the serious problems that threats Clouded leopard's conservation. They are threatened by habitat loss following large-scale deforestation and commercial poaching for the wildlife trade. Skins, claws, and teeth are offered for decoration and clothing, bones and meat as substitute for tiger in traditional Asian medicines and tonics, and live animals for the pet trade. 

A lot of people are doing what is possible to preserve this animal in captivity.