When the world was celebrating Wildlife Day on March 3, a black leopard was caught on camera by tourists at the core areas of Tadoba-Andhari tiger reserve (TATR) in Chandrapur area in Maharashtra.
The black leopard was earlier spotted in May 2018, according to forest officials. They suspect that it is the same melanistic leopard that was captured in their trap cameras,” a forest official was quoted as saying in a media report.
The animal is likely to be five years old.
The melanistic leopard is a colour variant of the Indian leopard, which is rich in melanism that is the development of the dark-coloured pigment melanin in the skin.
Wildlife experts were surprised to see the animal's sighting in Tadobaa as their natural habitats are the densly forested areas in south India and Assam.