Leopard is distributed in Africa, middle eastern Asia, Indian subcontinent, Malay Peninsula, China, southeast Asia, and Russia. In India, it has a very wide geographical distribution. It occurs in all the states except extreme western India and desert. It is highly adaptive species that is equally present in protected areas as well as outsie the protected areas and human-dominated landscapes. Leopard relies on its ability to camouflage to hunt its prey that include small to medium sized herbivores and livestock, pet and feral dogs. It is an apex predator in the areas devoid of tiger. 

Conservation Status:

This species is listed as Vulnerable in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (https://www.iucnredlist.org/).

According to IUCN Red List assessment, population of this species is decreasing all over its range globally. Its population is estimated to be below 10,000 mature individuals in India. Major threat to its survival come mainly from habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching and trapping, and retaliatory killing.