Leopard

By http://www.flickr.com/photos/edglickman/ edg1

The leopard is the smallest of the four "big cats" in the genus Panthera, the other three being the tiger, lion, and jaguar. Once found from Siberia to South Africa and throughout eastern and southern Asia, its range of distribution has decreased radically because of hunting and loss of habitat. 

It is now mainly found in sub-Saharan Africa; though fragmented populations exist in China, Indochina, Indonesia, Malaysia, India,  Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Its declining range and population, mean it is listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), as a "Near Threatened" species.

IUCN's stated vision is a just world that values and conserves nature.

By Earth-Touch.com [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons