Silver+Leopard+-+Calvin+Chan

__**Future Animal - The Silver Leopard**__ Modern Animal - Snow Leopard Ancient Animal - The European Cave Lion Calvin Chan

It is 20,000 years in the future during the Anthropocene Epoch, the year is 22,011 and an ice age has been in action for the last 16,000 years. The land mass has not changed but the animals and climates had changed drastically. The word argentum in Latin is silver and the word pardus means leopard in Latin which is the silver leopard. This is one of the animals that had to evolve in order to survive during the Anthropocene Epoch and it had to evolve from the Snow Leopard.

The silver leopard has been spreading further north now and is located within northern china, Russia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia (Ref Map.1) and located lower in Rocky terrains, plainlands, forests and valleys as the environment higher in the mountains has become inhabitable due to the cold temperatures almost -43 C.
 * __Habitat__**

The silver leopards is a carnivore and its main prey has not changed much since it has evolved from the snow leopard but is now more agile so it can hunt them much faster. It still feeds on ibex, except they are slightly more eveolved now, Sheep and also Hares except they have evolved to become much more agile aswell, so it is not the silver lepards main prey. Much like its ancient snow leopard ancestor, the silver leopard gets its source of water from the snow. It drinks and licks up the run off water from melting snow and due to its travelling nature they may encounter small springs in the bottom of the valley from collected melted ice or even frozen ponds which it uses its horn to break through and get water from.

The vegetation within the silver leopards environment is now tundra much like the vegetation its very ancient ancestor, the European cave lion had to live with.

The atmosphere is very cold and the air around is very thin. There is often snow fall and occasionally snow storms in where it lives. The temperatures can drop to -20 C and in order for the silver leopard to survive it has to lie close to each other in the pride to conserve heat. The terrain it lives in ranges from rocky lower mountains, icy planlands to snow encrusted forests.


 * __Structural Adaption – Growth of Horn (Ref Fig 1)__**

The silver leopard has undergone amazing evolution by growing a curved black horn. Due to the cold weather and ice age, the habitat the silver leopard lives in is now thickly covered in ice and snow which snowed in many of its shelters, meaning that the animals had to break through the snow and ice in order to enter their shelter. After thousands of years of breaking through ice to get into crevasses and caves it has evolved a horn in order to break through the ice and get into the shelters easier. The snow leopard has also incorporated the horn into its hunting pattern by burying itself under snow, so it is only the horn protruding out of the ice as if it were a rock. As unsuspecting prey comes by it pounces on them, kills them and brings it the prey back to the pride.


 * __Structural Adaptions – Silver Fur (Ref Fig 1)__**

The environment is constantly under snow making the snow leopards fur tainted and reflect the colour of the snow. When the snow leopard reaches darker coloured areas such as rock faces the silvery fur absorbs the and also darkens the fur as the colour of the rocks are reflecting of the fur. The fur also contains dark rosette spots much like its ancient ancestor, the snow leopard in order to camouflage and hunt. The silver leopard also has very thick fur that has a length of up to 7 inches because it is required to stay warm and functional in this cold environment.


 * __Structural Adaptions – Transparent Eyelids (Ref Fig 1)__**

In the Anthropocene Ice age there are raging blizzards of snow and in order the silver leopard to not be dazed by the oncoming snow it has developed transparent eyelids much like the crocodiles to see through the snow. Without this adaption they would not be able to travel through snow storms and see where they are heading, without the knowledge of their location, they can easily walk off cliff edges and die. This ensures that the silver leopard can see and navigate through its harsh, rough environment.


 * __Structural Adaptions – Reduction in size (Ref Fig 1)__**

The Amalgam Pardus is 5 – 10% smaller than its relative, the snow leopard. The snow leopard had to reduce its size due to the fact that there was not enough prey during the anthropocene ice age. Over the ice age only the smaller snow leopards could survive and sustain its health due to the lack of prey, due to the passing down of genes over many thousands of years, the snow leopard has evolved into the silver leopard. The silver fox is agile but only weighs 27 – 40 kg now and is only 43 inches long because the necessary nutrition required for optimal performance is reduced.

The silver leopard, unlike its relative the Snow leopard, now lives in prides and hunts together. The reason for this is that they require more reproduction in order to survive and pass down more genetic information. The ice age has reduced the amount of human interference and boundaries for the silver leopard to travel which allowed them to group up together, unlike the snow leopard as human cities and war zones made it harder for them to come in contact with each other. By changing from a solitary animal to a group animal, it has changed its hunting patterns. Now the silver leopard Prides work together to hunt by having on silver leopard chase the (PREY) and as mentioned before, on silver leopard lies in the snow to hide and will ambush the prey. By living in a pact they also travel together for the purposes of safety and mating.
 * __Behaviour – Living in Prides (Ref Fig 2)__**

Environmental Pressures – The main environmental pressure that leads to all this evolution is the Ice Age. The cold weather and snow has made the snow leopard have to change into the silver leopard to survive through many passing down of genes. The silver leopard has adapted to the cold weather, snow and also if it wasn’t for the ice age, the silver leopards can re unite and work in prides to survive this climate.It has reduced its size because of the reduced amount of prey and if it is smaller it requires less energy to hunt and live. Due to the cold weather and blizzards it the silver leaopard has transparent eye lids to see through the snow. Due to the snow freezing on all the shelters the silver leopard lives in it has developed a horn.

__**Selection Pressure that led to Extinction of the SIlver Leopard**__ Although the snow leopard is suited for the cold climate it currently inhabits it will not stay like this forever. The environmental pressure that will lead to the eventual extinction of the snow leopard is climate change, mainly global warming much like after the Wurm ice age, the ice and snow will melt and the sea levels may rise exponentially. This may either mean that the silver leopard will have to adapt to live in the water or migrate higher up into the mountain in order to stay in a cool climate with land as they cannot stay in hot environments as they would overheat their bodies as they are covered in fur. The heating of the earth will make the silver leopard either adapt or it will die off without passing of any new genes for survival much like the saber toothed tiger.

__**Bibliography**__ The National Snow and Ice Data Center. No Author. Accessed 20 June, 2011 Retrieved From. http://www-nsidc.colorado.edu/ Disadvantages of animals living in groups.Author Dustin Watson. Accessed 23 June 2011 Retrieved from http://www.dailypuppy.com/articles/the-disadvantages-of-animals-living-in-groups/02724dcc-4135-d354-5e1a-870a2256e8eb HowStuffWoeks"How Animals Camoflauge". Author. Tom Harris. Accessed 23 June 2011. Retrieved http://www.howstuffworks.com/animal-camouflage.htm