As Macumba is usually a deviant, bombastic, bundle of mischief in a black-spotted fur coat, this picture is very misleading.
Oh sure! He looks all calm and docile! He looks so cute with his chin resting on that log like he's resting and being all gentle, but don't let that fool you! He's an Evil Spotted Thing. This is just to mislead you, right before he vaults up an pounces the stuffing out of you!
Macumba is not unlike his kind. Leopards are all very aggressive by nature. I use that word very specifically, but not in the negative connotation. For example, let's compare a visit to your cougar buddy with that of a leopard (provided you're crazy enough to go in the cage with either). :)
Cougar: You open the outer gate of the cage, and step into the entry area, and the kitty comes vaulting off the platforms and zooms to the inner gate and then starts pacing back and forth, waiting for you. This isn't quite the dog meeting you at the door wagging his tail happily, but it's essentially the same thing. So you open the inner gate and the cougar-kitty comes right up, turns on the purrpurr motor to the "high" setting, and starts rubbing itself against your legs and in general, wrapping itself around you. Happy cat, happy to see a friend, and the purr that says a gentle, subtle "Hi".
Leopard: You open the outer gate of the cage, and step into the entry area, and the kitty come vaulting off the platforms and zooms the to inner gate and then starts pacing back and forth, waiting for you. Please notice the tense, entire body and the deviant sparkle in the eyes. The entire body language says "excitement", which isn't quite like the wagging-tail-happy-dog thing either. This is more like the "oh-goodie-I’m-gonna-have-a-play-thing-in-a-minute!" So you get the inner door open, and the leopard comes zooming out into the double entry with you, does the hard, 90-turn, and come straight up into your face. If you're lucky, you got your hands up enough to grab his shoulders, otherwise you've got a leopard in your face.
Okay. So now, your /in/ the cage with said leopard, with nothing in between you and him. You both back off from gate, which is really to say you're backing away and he's following as he's not even begun messing with you yet! He'll leap again, this time in the close-range, frontal bombardment attack. Your choices are simple: A) catch him (150lbs of leopard, flying through the air, yeah right!) or B) deflect him so he just flies right on by. Sounds like the better option, huh? Not really. Just a delay in the inevitable.
One thing to remember about leopards (and jags too for that matter): they're fast. /Really/ fast. They have about twice the reflex of the other cats. Let me put that into "human" terms. Let's call the typical human reflex a "1". Most cats are about 1.2 on that scale; they faster than we are, but we can hold our own for a little while on a good day. But leopards are about twice the other cats, so on the relative scale, are a 2.4, almost two-and-a-half-times faster in reflex than us meager humans. So, having said all that, let me get back to the scenario.
Option A: pretty simple. He hits you, and the whole weight/velocity thing just takes your right off your feet and the leopard rides you all the way to the impact, clinging to your front-side like napalm, and you lose what breath you have when you hit the ground.
Option B: a little more complicated, but the same end result. You manage to divert the leopard-attack and he goes flying over your shoulder and you think you're safe. Nope. Think again! He just uses that 2.4 Reflex Rating thing and shifts instantly into the next attack trajectory, which is to just simply bounce off the cage wall behind you, reverse directions (cats are entirely exempt from the laws of physics, such as gravity and inertia), and hits you from behind before you can swivel around fast enough to even have a remote chance of salvation.
Now, you go from upright, to flat on your back, and you've got a leopard perched on your chest with a deviant smile on his face. He leans right in to put his nose about a centimeter from yours with that totally deviant expression on his face that says two things simultaneously: “Hiya! I'm here!” as if you didn't know that already, and "Wanna play?!" like he was actually giving you a choice.
So there's the rundown of why I call leopard the totally in-your-face kitties. Don't get me wrong. Cougars have a very definitive deviant streak too, they're just a lot more subtle about things. But that's a story for later!
So this is Macumba in one of those pseudo-peaceful moments that usually last somewhere between three- and four-tenths of a second (or is that /nanoseconds/?). :)
This picture was taken 22-Jul-04. The image was taken with a Canon EOS 10D and the EF 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6 USM lens. The original was taken at full frame of 3072x2048x24b, ISO eqv 400, 1/180 shutter, f/5.6. This image was shrunken down for space conservation.
Disclaimer: I hate to have to put this on here, but the pic is copyright me. Please do not distribute, copy, alter, etc, without my permission. Having said all that, feel free to download and use it for your own inspiration.
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