JAKARTA - Specialists from the Land of Leopard National Park in Primorsky Region, Russia obtained the first rare marriage photos of a Far Eastern leopard at the age of 13, with an average life span of 12 years, the press service of the national park reported on Monday.
A big cat named Valera, at the age of 13, met romantically with a young female. A photo trap captures the world's rarest leopard encounter and mating for the first time.
Thirteen is a pretty big age, considering the average lifespan of a Far Eastern leopard in the wild is around 12 years. Nevertheless, older leopards display comfortable behavior and even communicate with the opposite sex which is indicative of good health, the report said.
The female Far Eastern leopard is only about two years old and this is the first time she has been photographed in a national park. According to scientists, obtaining such data from the wild is a very rare event, which is of great value to science and allows one to trace relationships between animals and build family trees.
Such work helps one better understand the social and spatial structure of populations, migration and distribution patterns of animals, ultimately developing optimal conservation measures.
"Thanks to the photos, we got valuable information both about Valera herself, which indicates that she is doing well, and about the life of the Far Eastern leopard in general," explains the press service citing Marina Syrytsa, head of the science department "Land of the leopard.
"At the age of 13, the animal continues to live a full life, which expands our knowledge of the ecology of this leopard subspecies. The success of the work of the national park is clear," the service continued.
The leopard received the name Valera thanks to the hockey club 'Admiral', whose players in 2014 became its guardians, choosing to name the predator in honor of the legendary Soviet hockey player Valery Kharlamov.
To note, leopards can breed at any time of the year. Usually, their marriage only lasted a few days, and after a short married life, they quickly lost interest in each other. If a female manages to conceive, she will be pregnant for about 90 days and give birth to up to three kittens.
The Far Eastern leopard is the rarest big cat in the world. In the early 2000s, there were only about 35 wild specimens of this predator left in the world. The animal is on the verge of extinction. Thanks to the creation of the Land of the Leopard National Park, the population has increased tremendously and has grown to 110 animals.
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