African black panther photographed, first in 110 years

This 11 February 2019 video says about itself:

San Diego Zoo Global researchers have confirmed the presence of rare black leopards living in Laikipia County, Kenya. Sometimes called black panthers, the melanistic leopards were filmed in Lorok, Laikipia County, Kenya on remote cameras that were set up as part of a large-scale study aimed at understanding the population dynamics of leopards in Mpala and Loisaba Conservancies.

Black panthers were the inspiration for the Black Panther Party in the USA; and later for similar groups in, eg, Israel and Greece.

Unfortunately, I found out today that the site Moorbey’z Blog, with much posts on, eg, the Black Panthers, has been deleted.

This 10 February 2019 video says about itself:

My quest to photograph a melanistic African Leopard (Black Panther) using Camtraptions camera traps.

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A wild African black leopard… A dream come true! Link in bio to more photos #camtraptions #cameratrap #blackpanther

A post shared by Will Burrard-Lucas (@willbl) on Feb 11, 2019 at 2:15am PST

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

Black leopard photographed for the first time in over one hundred years

For the first time since 1909 a black leopard has been photographed. That happened in a Kenyan nature reserve. Researchers confirm in the African Journal of Ecology that it is the rare animal indeed.

The black leopard has special fur through melanism, the opposite of albinism. As a result, the pelt colours black during the day and other colours can be seen at night.

The British photographer Will Burrard-Lucas photographed the animal in the Kenyan Laikipia Wilderness Camp, where the animal was spotted several times. The photographer spoke with residents, followed the footprints and placed a camera with a motion sensor.

Dream come true

After a few days he saw the black leopard on his images. “I stared at the picture, a pair of eyes surrounded by inky darkness … the black leopard. I could not believe it and it took a few days before I realized that my dream had come true”, he writes on his website.

Zoologists also react enthusiastically to the photos. “We always heard about black leopards in this region and this is the first confirmed photo of it in more than a hundred years”, says researcher Nicholas Pilfold to USA Today. The only previous confirmed photo of a black leopard was taken in Ethiopia, in 1909.

According to Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad today (translated):

The [black] female was spotted once in the presence of a fellow leopard with normal fur. The researchers suspect that this is possibly the mother of the dark individual.