Journal
AFRICAN JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY
Volume 58, Issue 3, Pages 399-408Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/aje.12714
Keywords
arboreal primates; diet; Panthera pardus; prey preference; staple food; Tanzania
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Funding
- MEXT/JSPS kakenhi [4903 JP17H06381, JP15H04429]
- Leading Graduate Program in Primatology and Wildlife Science of Kyoto University
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science [14J01073]
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [14J01073] Funding Source: KAKEN
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Leopard diets in the Kasoje area of the Mahale Mountains National Park, Tanzania, were analysed by inspecting prey remains in 256 scats. This area is unique as leopard density is high despite a relatively low density of medium-sized ungulates, regarded as the most preferred prey of leopards. At least eleven prey mammal species were confirmed in the scats. Small prey mammals up to 10 kg comprised 91.4% of the relative biomass consumed; the mean prey biomass in each scat was 7.6 kg. Blue duiker (31.2%) was the most dominant prey species, followed by the red colobus (29.2%), semi-terrestrial Cercopithecinae (the vervet monkey and yellow baboon combined) (10.5%) and the red-tailed monkey (9.9%). At the order level, the most consumed prey taxon was Primates (53.8%), followed by Cetartiodactyla (39.6%) and Rodentia (5.8%). Among primates, the blue monkey was the most preferred prey species, followed by the red colobus and semi-terrestrial Cercopithecinae. High consumption of primates is a unique characteristic of the leopards in Mahale. This trend exemplifies the flexibility of leopards in their choices of prey, and such flexibility may be one of the underlying reasons for leopards exhibiting the broadest global distribution among all wild felid species.
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