An African leopard carries its cub. Photograph by Federico Veronesi.

Dusk on the plains, by Marc Mol, *top,* and Hannes Lochner, *above.*

An Amur leopard, by Matthew Roper, *top,* and a snow leopard, by Abdul Rashid, *above.*

*Top,* an African leopard, by Richard Guijt; *above,* a Sunda clouded leopard, by Sebastian Kennerknecht.

*Top,* an African leopard, by Paolo Torchio; *above,* a cub, by Lance van de Vyver.

African leopards on the hunt, by James Gifford, *top,* and Ben Cranke, *above.*

An Indian leopard, by Marius Coetzee, *top,* and an African leopard, by Art Wolfe, *above.*

Although leopards tend to be solitary animals, they can sometimes be found playing together. Photographs by Yashas Narayan, *top,* and Trish Hennessy, *above.*

Unlike most cats, leopards are strong swimmers. Photographs by Paras Chandaria, *top,* and Volodymyr Burdock, *above.*

An African Cape leopard, by Steve Winter, *top,* and a black leopard, by Will Burrard-Lucas, *above.*

Where the Wild Things Are

A new book of images by more than 90 wildlife photographers raises awareness of the dangers faced by leopards right now

If you’ve ever been on safari, you may have come across a leopard. You may have noted its densely patterned fur and golden eyes, and seen its rippling muscles in action—that velvety stealth, tail long and low. “Those who have never seen a leopard,” the British naturalist Jim Corbett wrote in his book Man-Eaters of Kumaon (1944), “can have no conception of the grace of movement, and beauty of coloring, of the most graceful and the most beautiful of all animals.”

Today, eight sub-species in the genus Panthera are still scattered across regions and eco-systems, from Botswana to China, and from Kenya to Russia. Among them is the large Sri Lankan leopard, which is slightly larger than its Indian neighbor, the regal Persian leopard in eastern Turkey, and the seductive African leopard in the sub-Sahara.