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The Anatolian leopard (''Panthera pardus tulliana''), also called the Asia Minor leopard, was proposed in the 19th century as a distinct leopard subspecies native to southwestern Turkey. Whether leopards survived in this area is not sure. The Anatolian leopard is currently subsumed to the Caucasian leopard. The first camera trap photograph of a leopard in Turkey was obtained in September 2013 in the Trabzon Province.〔World Bulletin (2013). ("Panthera pardus" spotted in Turkey ). World Bulletin, 11 September 2013.〕 In November 2013, a leopard was killed in the Çınar district of Diyarbakır Province.〔Hürriyet Daily News (2013). (''Shepherd kills first Anatolian leopard sighted in Turkey for years'' ) Hürriyet Daily News, 3 November 2013.〕 This specimen is considered the western-most observation of a Persian leopard.〔Breitenmoser, U. (2013). (''The Persian leopard at risk'' ). Cat News 59: Editorial.〕 == Distribution and habitat== The Anatolian leopard was first described on the basis of a skin of a leopard that was shot in the extreme west of Asia Minor, near Izmir in Turkey.〔Valenciennes, M. A. (1856). ''Sur une nouvelles espèce de Panthère tuée par M. Tchihatcheff à Ninfi, village situé à huit lieues est de Smyrne.'' Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences 42: 1035–1039.〕 Anatolian leopards are thought to have ranged in the Aegean and western parts of Turkey but were not known to be present in the Black Sea region.〔Can, O. E. (2004). ''Status, conservation and management of large carnivores in Turkey''. Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats. Standing Committee, 24th meeting, 29 November-3 December 2004, Strasbourg.〕 Since surveys were not carried out in western Turkey until the mid 1980s, biologists doubted whether leopards still survived in this part of Anatolia. Sighting reports from the environs of Alanya in the south of the Lycian peninsula suggested that a scattered population existed between Finike, Antalya and Alanya in the early 1990s. Fresh faecal pellets found in Termessos National Park in 1992 were attributed to an Anatolian leopard.〔Ullrich, B., Riffel, M. (1993). ''New evidence for the occurrence of the Anatolian Leopard, Panthera pardus tulliana (Valenciennes, 1856), in Western Turkey.'' Zoology in the Middle East 8 (1): 5–14.〕 A decade later, no signs of the presence of leopards were detected in the Termessos National Park. Interviews conducted with local people and national park personnel did not corroborate the presence of leopards in this area.〔Giannatos, G., Albayrak, T., Erdogan, A. (2006). ''Status of the Caracal in Protected Areas in Southwestern Turkey''. Cat News 45: 23–24.〕 During surveys carried out between 1993 and 2002, zoologists found evidence of leopards in the upper forest and alpine zones of the Pontic Mountains in northern Anatolia. In this area, possible prey species include wild ungulates such as deer, chamois, wild goat, wild pig but also mountain hare and Caucasian grouse.〔Baskaya, S., Bilgili, E. (2004). ''Does the leopard Panthera pardus still exist in the Eastern Karadeniz Mountains of Turkey ?'' Oryx 38 (2): 228–232.〕 It is unknown whether a significant number of leopards still exist in Anatolia. Extensive trophy hunting is thought to be the prime factor for the decline and possible extinction of the Anatolian leopard. One hunter named Mantolu Hasan killed at least fifteen leopards between 1930 and 1950.〔Ertüzün, M. (2006). (''The last Anatolian Panther'' ).〕 In eastern Turkey, the range of Anatolian leopards converges with the range of Caucasian leopards.〔Khorozyan, I. G., Gennady, F., Baryshnikov, G. F. and Abramov, A. V. (2006). (''Taxonomic status of the leopard, Panthera pardus (Carnivora, Felidae) in the Caucasus and adjacent areas'' ). Russian Journal of Theriology 5(1): 41–52.〕 A male leopard camera trapped in the Georgian Vashlovani National Park in 2003 was considered a Caucasian leopard.〔Antelava, N. (2004). (''Lone leopard spotted in Georgia'' ). BBC News, 25 May 2004〕 The last leopard in Syria is reputed to have been killed in 1963 about from the Turkish border in the Al-Ansariyah mountains.〔Masseti, M. (2009). (''Carnivores of Syria'' ) In: Neubert E, Amr Z, Taiti S, Gümüs B (eds.) Animal Biodiversity in the Middle East. Proceedings of the First Middle Eastern Biodiversity Congress, Aqaba, Jordan, 20–23 October 2008. ZooKeys 31: 229–252.〕 Leopards reported from the Galilee, the Golan Heights and the Judaean Desert are considered Arabian leopards.〔Perez I., Geffen, E., Mokady, O. (2006). ''Critically endangered Arabian leopards ''Panthera pardus nimr'' in Israel: estimating population parameters using molecular scatology''. Oryx 40 (3): 295–301.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Anatolian leopard」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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