Q 01/05

What is the leopard's scientific name?

A) Panthera pardus

B) Panthera onca

C) Panthera leo

D) Acinonyx jubatus

Answer · why

A) Panthera pardus

Panthera onca is the jaguar, Panthera leo the lion and Acinonyx jubatus the cheetah; the leopard is one of just five living Panthera species.

Q 02/05

How many living species make up the genus Panthera, the group the leopard belongs to?

A) Five

B) Nine

C) Seven

D) Twelve

Answer · why

C) Seven

The five are the lion, tiger, jaguar, leopard and snow leopard; the clouded leopards sit in a separate genus, Neofelis.

Q 03/05

The ancient Greek word 'pardos', the second half of 'leopardos', meant what?

A) Swift

B) Spotted

C) Golden

D) Hunter

Answer · why

B) Spotted

The first half, 'leon', means lion, so the name literally reads 'spotted lion'.

Q 04/05

The saying that a leopard cannot change its spots comes from which ancient source?

A) The Quran

B) The Iliad

C) The Bible

D) The Odyssey

Answer · why

C) The Bible

The Bible has it in the Book of Jeremiah, where the prophet asks whether a leopard can change his spots. His point was that people long used to doing ...

Q 05/05

Which naturalist first gave the leopard a scientific name, in 1758?

A) Georges Cuvier

B) Carl Linnaeus

C) Charles Darwin

D) Alexander von Humboldt

Answer · why

B) Carl Linnaeus

Carl Linnaeus filed the leopard under Felis, the same genus he gave the house cat, in his 1758 Systema Naturae.