Leopard the 13th century AD, generally refers to the leopard, and less often to the cougar and the jaguar. Alternative origins suggested for "Panthera" include an Indo-Iranian word meaning "white-yellow" or "pale". In Sanskrit, this could have been derived from पाण्डर "pāṇḍara" ("tiger"), which in turn comes from पुण्डरीक "puṇḍárīka" (with the same meaning). The specific name "pardus" is derived from the Greek ("pardos") ("male panther"). The leopard is one of the five extant species of the genus "Panthera", which also includes the jaguar ("P. onca"), the lion ("P. leo"), the snow leopard ("P. uncia") and the tiger ("P. tigris"). This
Indochinese leopard are predominantly spotted. South of the Isthmus, only melanistic leopards were present. Melanism is quite common in dense tropical forest habitat, and black leopards have a selective advantage for ambush. The Indochinese leopard is distributed in Southeast Asia, where today small populations remain only in Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, and southern China. In Laos, Viet Nam and Singapore it is suspected to have been extirpated. Peninsular Malaysia and the Northern Tenasserim Forest Complex on Thailand-Myanmar border are at present considered strongholds, and eastern Cambodia a priority site. In Myanmar's Chatthin Wildlife Sanctuary, the leopard population declined so drastically between the