New, never-before-seen images provide insight into the secret life of a species of clouded leopard found in the dense rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra.
By Douglas Main edited by Andrea Thompson
A Sunda clouded leopard walks in front of a camera trap in Sabah, Borneo.
Panther
The Sunda clouded leopard roams the dense rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra in search of bearded pigs and mouse deer to prey on. Its tawny coat, enhanced with dark cloud-shaped spots, blends into its environment. Beyond these basics, however, there is still much unknown about these elusive felines, sometimes called “forest ghosts,” including how long they live and how they spend their time.
But a new set of images and data, captured between 2007 and 2023 in three reserves in the state of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, reveals a never-before-seen insight into their secret lives.
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A recent study In Biotropica Analysis of 15 years of photos and other data revealed 52 adult individuals, including 30 males and 22 females, helping to answer some of the questions about the species.
What really surprised the researchers was “how difficult it is to put females in front of the lens,” says lead study author Katharina Kasper, a biologist at the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research.
A mother and her Sunda clouded leopard cub filmed – a rarity – in Sabah, Borneo.
It turns out that females spend a lot of their time in trees, much more than males. “Their physique suggests this, as their bodies are generally slimmer and they have fluffier tails that help them balance,” Kasper says of females. “Resident males, on the other hand, spend a lot of time circling and noticing their territories. [with urine]that’s why we catch them more often.
The oldest known wild clouded leopard, a female, captured by a camera trap in Malaysian Borneo. This individual is estimated to have been 8.5 years old.
The study, led by Kasper, along with researchers from global wildcat conservation organization Panthera and the Sabah Forestry Department, observed a single female for many years and determined that these cats can live up to 8.5 years in the wild, a new record for the species. (Although there aren’t enough members of this species in zoos to have solid numbers, a close relative, the continental clouded leopard, has lived up to 20 years in a zoo, consistent with the general trend that captive cats live about twice as long as wild cats.)
Kasper says the study has already helped the group refine its research efforts to examine the factors that influence the disturbance and survival of Sunda clouded leopards. In turn, this will help guide conservation efforts for this species, which is classified as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a notch above endangered.
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