The Leopard Question: teacher key

Leopards, grade 12 edition, written for 12th grade and up. The origins of leopards in Africa and Asia, how many subspecies there are and how a leopard climbs and hoists its food into a tree. Then the coat, the range and the status of leopards, and how cubs begin.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. What did the Panthera study in Sabi Sands find about how much prey was hoisted into trees?
   • Almost none
   • Every one
   • Just over 50 percent (answer)
2. What did Panthera report about hyenas and hoisting?
   • Leopards hoisted less when hyenas were present
   • Leopards were more likely to hoist their prey if hyenas were present (answer)
   • Hyenas had no link to hoisting
3. As of November 2026, how many leopard subspecies does the IUCN Cat Specialist Group say are proposed, based on more recent genetic studies?
   • Three
   • Eight (answer)
   • Twenty
4. The 2021 genome authors said all African populations should be considered together as a single subspecies. What does that suggest about counting subspecies?
   • The count never changes
   • Subspecies are all the same size
   • The count depends on how the groups are drawn (answer)
5. What does hoisted mean?
   • Counted
   • Hidden
   • Lifted up (answer)

Words

• genome: all its genes
• hoisted: lifted up
• subspecies: a smaller kind
• Melanism: dark coloring
• taxonomic: about grouping