Revealed! The Black Panther Photographed in Kenya was born in America

black leopard

Photographs of a rare black leopard released yesterday were not in fact the first from Africa in a century, as New Scientist and many others reported.

In 2013, Phoebe Okall, a photographer for Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper, captured this image at Ol Jogi Conservancy, around 50 kilometres from the Loisaba Conservancy where the more recent photos were taken.

That leopard, named Bagheera, was not born in the wild though – he was rescued from a pet shop in New York and brought to Kenya as a cub.

Nicholas Pilfold of San Diego Zoo Global, the lead researcher for a leopard conservation programme in Laikipia County, said the new photos were the first confirmed images of black leopards in nearly 100 years – although “confirmed” in this context means “the image must show the characteristic rosette pattern of the leopard”.

Pilford’s journal paper reporting the new photos also included an image taken in 2007, which shows a black leopard at Ol Ari Nyiro Conservancy, about 50 kilometres west of Loisaba Conservancy.

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