{"id":5354,"date":"2015-07-26T07:14:14","date_gmt":"2015-07-26T07:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revoscience.com\/en\/?p=5354"},"modified":"2015-07-26T07:14:14","modified_gmt":"2015-07-26T07:14:14","slug":"malaysias-black-panthers-finally-reveal-their-leopards-spots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/malaysias-black-panthers-finally-reveal-their-leopards-spots\/","title":{"rendered":"Malaysia’s ‘black panthers’ finally reveal their leopard’s spots"},"content":{"rendered":"

By modifying the infrared flash on automatic camera traps and forcing them into \u2018night mode\u2019 a team of wildlife experts has revealed the black leopard\u2019s spots.<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\"Copyright<\/a>
Copyright : \u00a9 Rimba Research Malaysia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From the frozen forests of Russia to the scorching sands of the Kalahari Desert, leopards are the most widely distributed large cat on earth. Their iconic spotted coat has been admired and coveted by humans for millennia. But in one part in their vast range – in Peninsular Malaysia – leopards are almost entirely black in colour.<\/span>

By modifying the infrared flash on automatic camera traps and forcing them into \u2018night mode\u2019 a team of wildlife experts has revealed the black leopard\u2019s spots.\u00a0<\/span>

This research, led by Laurie Hedges during his Masters research degree in the School of Geography at The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC), has been published in the Journal of Wildlife Management will provide scientists with a new tool to help save this unique and endangered animal.<\/span>

Camera traps are increasingly being used to study rare and elusive wildlife, particularly in tropical rainforests. But a simple tweak of the camera traps has produced astounding images and video of black leopards \u2013 and their spots. With infrared flash, the seemingly \u2018black\u2019 leopards suddenly showed complex patterns of spotting. The project was a team effort involving UNMC, the conservation organisation Rimba, WWF-Malaysia, the James Cook University in Australia and the Department of Wildlife and National Parks Peninsular Malaysia.<\/span>

Technique critical for leopard conservation<\/span>

Laurie said: \u201cThis is perhaps the only known example of a wild mammal with virtually an entire population composed of black individuals and scientists have no idea why it predominates in the Malay Peninsula. Understanding how Malaysia\u2019s leopards are faring in an increasingly human-dominated world is vital.\u201d<\/span>

Gopalasamy Reuben Clements, Honorary Assistant Professor at UNMC\u2019s School of Geography, said: \u201cMost automatic cameras have an infrared flash, but it\u2019s only activated at night. By blocking the camera\u2019s light sensor we can fool the camera into thinking it is night even when it is day, so it always flashes.\u201d<\/span>

The black coloration known as melanism \u2013 the over development of dark-coloured pigment in the skin and the opposite of albinism \u2013 makes it nearly impossible to identify individual animals. For this reason leopard populations in Peninsular Malaysia have been difficult to study for large carnivore researchers. Having revealed their spots field ecologists can now identify different animals and begin to estimate the population size of the species.\u00a0<\/span>

Mark Rayan Darmaraj, who manages a WWF-Malaysia tiger conservation project, said: \u201cBecause their uniformly black colour prevented us from identifying individual animals and thereby estimating their population sizes very little was known about leopards in Malaysia.\u201d<\/span>

Conservation work can now begin across Malaysia<\/span>

The researchers tested the technique in the Kenyir wildlife corridor in north-eastern Peninsular Malaysia.\u00a0<\/span>

Laurie said: \u201cWe found we could accurately identify 94 per cent of the animals. This will allow us to study and monitor this population over time, which is critical for its conservation.\u201d<\/span>

The researchers now hope to use their new method to study black leopards elsewhere.\u00a0<\/span>

Dr Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz, from the School of Geography at UNMC, said: \u201cSome places in Peninsular Malaysia where I have used automatic cameras have lots of prey and forest cover but evidently very few leopards.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>

Widespread poaching seems the most likely explanation.<\/span>

William Laurance from the James Cook University said; \u201cMany dead leopards bearing injuries inflicted by wire snares have been discovered in Malaysia.\u201d<\/span>

Leopard skins and body parts are increasingly showing up in wildlife trading markets in places such as on the Myanmar-China border. At the same time, suitable leopard habitats are disappearing faster in Malaysia than perhaps anywhere else in the world, as forests are felled for timber and replaced with oil palm and rubber plantations.\u00a0<\/span>

Laurie Hedges works as a researcher in the forests of northern Malaysia, conducting primary research on carnivores, big and small. Since 2014 he has been working as ‘Head of Monitoring’ on the project Harimau Selamanya which aims to assess the population status of tigers in a region of Peninsular Malaysia. This is a partnership between the organisations Rimba and Panthera.\u00a0<\/span>

UNMC’s 15th Anniversary<\/span>
One of the world’s truly global universities, with campuses in Malaysia,the UK and China, 2015 marks the 15th year since setting up as UK’s first full-fledged international campus in Malaysia and all three campuses continue to enrich the lives of students across the world through global education,ground-breaking research and community engagement.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By modifying the infrared flash on automatic camera traps and forcing them into \u2018night mode\u2019 a team of wildlife experts has revealed the black leopard\u2019s spots. From the frozen forests of Russia to the scorching sands of the Kalahari Desert, leopards are the most widely distributed large cat on earth. Their iconic spotted coat has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","category-research"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/2915.jpg",272,288,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/2915-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/2915.jpg",272,288,false],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/2915.jpg",272,288,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/2915.jpg",272,288,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/2915.jpg",272,288,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/2915.jpg",272,288,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/2915.jpg",272,288,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/2915.jpg",272,288,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/2915.jpg",272,288,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/2915.jpg",272,288,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/2915.jpg",272,288,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/2915.jpg",272,288,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/2915.jpg",61,65,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/2915.jpg",272,288,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/2915.jpg",91,96,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/2915.jpg",150,159,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Environment<\/a> Research<\/a>","tag_info":"Research","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}