Despite being not too big, clouded leopards are often referred as a “modern-day saber tooth” because they are the cats with the largest canines in proportion to their body size, matching the tiger in canine length. Clouded leopard have a very distinctive fur pattern , often largely obliterated by black and dark dusky-grey blotches yielding the clouded pattern that suggest the English name of the cat. Despite its name, it is not closely related to the leopard. There are two species of clouded leopards, both quite similar, the simple clouded leopard is Neofelis nebulosa. The other one is the Sunda clouded leopard. They diverged 1.4 million years ago, after having used a now submerged land bridge to reach Borneo and Sumatra from mainland Asia. The most significant differences between them is related with the way how they are spotted. Sunda species have smaller clouds in the back half of the body. The color of the two models are slightly different, being one more brownish than the other. However, both species can have the two colorations. The clouded leopard belongs to the Neofelis linage, part of the Panthera genus. It is considered to form an evolutionary link between the big cats and the small cats.In fact, As you can see in the following picture it represents the smallest of the big cats.
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AuthorI love animal replicas. I make them since I was a child an now I have restarted this passionate hobby. Archives
October 2016
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