Leopard broad diet, and strength (which it uses to move heavy carcasses into trees), as well as its ability to adapt to various habitats ranging from rainforest to steppe, including arid and montane areas, and its ability to run at speeds of up to . Fossil parts dating to the Late Pleistocene were excavated in Europe and Japan. The common name "leopard" () is a Greek compound of "leōn" ("lion") and "pardos" ("male panther"). The name reflects the fact that in antiquity, a leopard was believed to be a hybrid of a lion and a panther. The Greek word is related
Leopard only eight subspecies and subsumed "P. p. ciscaucasica" to "P. p. tulliana", and "P. p. japonensis" to "P. p. orientalis". The last common ancestor of the genera "Panthera" and "Neofelis" is believed to have occurred about 6.37 million years ago. The clouded leopard was the first to diverge from the rest of the "Panthera" lineage, followed by the snow leopard. The genus "Panthera" is believed to have emerged in Asia, from where they subsequently emigrated to Africa. The tiger-snow leopard clade diverged from the rest of "Panthera" around 2.9 million years ago. Johnson and colleagues suggest that the leopard diverged