Cheetah vs Leopard: Spots Up Close

On the Serengeti plains in 1983, a single cheetah’s coat shimmered gold beneath the sun, every spot a perfect round dot. Leopards, that same season, slunk through the Acacia shadows, their markings messy-rosettes like scattered inkblots with pale centres. The cheetah’s dots help it disappear in tall grass during its eighty-kilometre-per-hour sprints, built for speed and open land. The leopard’s rosettes, uneven circles with soft middles, work like camouflage in thick branches, letting it climb and ambush in silence. Cheetahs have small heads, black 'tear marks' running from their eyes to their mouth, and their spots never bunch together. Leopards have larger heads, no tear marks, their rosettes sometimes merging across their sides. In 1983, that cheetah ran down a gazelle in open daylight, while a leopard hauled an antelope into a tree at dusk, hidden by rosettes. To remember: dots dash for speed, rosettes relax in the trees. Only one coat was left on the grass in the morning.