Leopard vs. Cheetah: Do YOU know the difference?

It’s the classic safari pub quiz question: leopard or cheetah? Both are spotted. Both are sleek. And both will have you fumbling for your binoculars in embarrassment if you get it wrong.

There are several differences between these two superb predators. Both in appearance and in character. And that also means that you are likely to encounter them in different wildlife terrains. And, as you read on, you’ll see that these differences between leopard vs cheetah are all inter-related.

Their different body shape influences their style of attack. Their style of attack influences the sort of terrain that they want to inhabit. The terrain that will give them the best chance of making a successful kill and keeping the successful kill.

Their size and family structure influences their position in the predator pecking order. And this position also influences their scarcity and where they like to hang out.

So, we’ll look at the following differences between cheetah and leopard:

• Appearance
• Family structure
• Style of Hunting their Prey
• Preferred Terrain
• Position in the Predator Pecking Order
• Scarcity
• Shyness
• Collared

Spots, Speed & Safari Myths: Cheetah versus Leopard Explained

FEATURE	LEOPARD	CHEETAH
Build (Appearance)	Muscular	Lean and Aerodynamic
Spots	Rosette-shapped	Solid Black Spots
Facial Markings	No Tear Lines	Distinctive Black ‘Tears’
Social Structure	Solitary	Males may Form a Coalition
Style of Hunting	Stalking using trees/think bush as camouflage	Relying on Speed
Preferred Terrain	Wooden terrain	Open Plains
Climbing Ability	Excellent	Rarely Climbs
Hunting Time	Nocturnal	Diurnal
Speed	Up to 55-60 km/hour	Up to 110 km/hour
Scarcity	Plentiful but elusive	Low numbers but increasing
Shyness	Very shy	Can become semi-habituated (but children are seen as prey)
Numbers in Africa	125,000 (estimated)	7,000 (estimated)

Spotting the Difference in Appearance – How to Tell a Cheetah from a Leopard on Safari

(Excuse the pun)

At first glance leopard and cheetah seem remarkably similar. But once you know the tell-tale signs, they’re easy to tell apart. Like confusing Brad Pitt with Idris Elba… both impossibly good-looking, but hardly identical. The main differences you will spot between leopards and cheetahs are their spots, eyes, and their build.

• Cheetahs: Think polka-dot party. Their spots are solid black circles or ovals dotted consistently across their tan coats. Whereas leopards are all about the rosette — the high-fashion logo of the feline world. 

• Leopard spots group up to form clusters resembling open circles or ‘rosettes’  with a deep brown spot in the middle
• A cheetah has black tear grooves between the eyes and mouth – think permanent eyeliner gone wrong. Whereas as leopard has more open facial features, with no black distinctive lines.
• The leopard (built for strength) is far stockier and solid, which allow it to move its prey to safer ground, typically up a tree, or to a wooded koppie out of sight.
• The cheetah is built for speed and is more slender with long legs for explosive speed. The cheetah is built like a running machine

So, next time you’re staring through binoculars on safari, you’ll know exactly who’s who.

Leopard Statistics:

Population Size: Unknown

Age: 10 – 20 years

Top Speed: 58 km/h

Weight: 40 – 90 kg

Height: 57 – 70 cm

Length: 90 – 190 cm

Habitat: Desert And Semi-Desert Regions, Arid Regions, Savanna Grasslands, Mountainous Environments, Rainforests, And Occasionally Urban Areas

Appearance: These large carnivores are powerfully built with stocky bodies, relatively short legs, and a broad head. They’re surprisingly heavy for their compact size. Their bodies are designed for stealth, climbing, and power. 

There are nine subspecies and are distinguished by the unique characteristics of their coats, which range from tawny or light yellow in warm, dry habitats to reddish orange in dense forests.

Their coat is covered in dark, irregular spots called rosettes. These spots are circular in east African leopards, but square in southern African leopards. The tail is ringed, and the animal has distinct black markings on its face, chest, and feet.

Leopards have longer, more angular faces and a powerful set of jaws destined for crunching through bones and sinew.

Cheetah Statistics:

Population Size: ± 7,000

Age: 10 – 20 years

Top Speed: 112 km/h

Weight: 21 – 72 kg

Height: 70 – 90 cm

Length: 112 – 150 cm

Habitat: Wide range of habitats—from dry forests and thick scrubs through grasslands and Sahara Deserts. In order to hide from predators, these animals prefer an environment with lush vegetation such as tall grass or bushes.

Appearance: The cheetah is a large cat identified by black marks (so-called “tear marks”), running down from the inner eye along the nose to the outside of the mouth.

Cheetahs are all about aerodynamics. Tall at the shoulder but lean and streamlined, they’re built for one thing: speed.

The cheetah is an extremely agile animal, having powerful hind legs and a very flexible, muscular spine. The body is long and slender, covered with coarse yellowish fur with small black markings. The tail is spotted with ringed markings, having a black tip on its end. In addition, the tail is quite long, helping the cheetah to keep balance and change direction.

Other Subtle Clues:

• Eye colour: Cheetahs often have amber or brown eyes, while leopards can sport piercing green or blue hues.
• Sounds: Only leopards can deliver a proper feline roar. Cheetahs communicate in chirps and purrs instead.
• Length & Height: Oddly enough, cheetahs are taller at the shoulders, but leopards are longer overall.

Cheetah vs Leopard – Solitary Leopards or Cheetah Coalitions

Unlike lions, who are very sociable and work as a team, both leopards and cheetah are generally solitary. Leopards are generally asocial animals, living alone and avoiding other leopards. Moreover, when leopards accidentally encounter each other, they can engage in a fight.

In contrast cheetahs live in three main social groups: females with their cubs, male “coalitions”, and solitary males. Females lead a nomadic life searching for prey in large home ranges. Males are more sedentary and instead establish much smaller territories in areas with plentiful prey and access to females.

When younger, they often form coalitions with other young males to assist each other with catching their prey. Once matured, they prefer to operate alone and not have to compete with others for the attention of the females.

Cheetah vs Leopard – Style of Hunting

Unlike other large African predators such as lions, leopards or hyenas, cheetahs are most active during the day; this way they avoid competition for food with these animals.

Leopards are nocturnal and hunt at night, usually on the ground or from vantage points in trees. They are the masters of stealth. They need an environment which offers plenty of hiding spots, such as thick bush, forests, and rocky outcrops. Trees aren’t just picturesque scenery for leopards; they’re vital. These cats not only use them for cover but also as vantage points, nap spots, and even storage places for their prey.

They depend on their acute senses of hearing and vision for hunting. A leopard will creep up incredibly silently and the final burst of speed will be over a shorter distance. Ideally, they will stalk their prey and try to approach to within 5 m (16 ft) of the target, and, finally, pounce on it and kill it by suffocation.

In contrast, cheetahs rely on their amazing top speed to catch their prey. Cheetahs will silently creep as close as possible, identify a vulnerable animal (either one that it young, or wandered away from the pack, or heavily pregnant). Then they’ll use their incredible acceleration to run it down. They can get up to 100 km/hour in just 3 seconds. That’s faster than most super cars!

But as you can imagine, it needs a certain type of terrain for this to work. Ideally a flat open savanna plain. Preferably with long grass to hide its approach.

Then it will be able to reach its full speed and not have to worry about tripping over a rock or navigating trees which will slow it down.

Differences in Hunting Time and Vision: Cheetah versus Leopard

If you’ve ever been on safari, you’ll have noticed that cheetahs and leopards run on different schedules. Leopards are the masters of the nocturnal hustle, while cheetahs prefer their action served sunny-side up.

Leopards have evolved for twilight and nocturnal adventures. Their eyes are decked out with a high concentration of light-sensitive cells, making them the feline equivalent of night-vision goggles. With large eyes and wide pupils, they soak up every speck of moonlight – giving them a serious advantage when it’s dark.

Cheetahs, on the other hand, are built for the daylight dash. Their vision is packed with cone cells, designed to pick up detail and motion in bright light. This means they excel at hunting in day time, spotting prey from a distance and tearing across the savanna at top speed. (They also sidestep the lion and leopard competition after dark by avoiding late-night prowling altogether.)

In short: leopards rule the night, cheetahs own the day.

Differences in Hunting Time and Vision: Cheetah versus Leopard

Both cats aren’t picky eaters, but they each have gourmet quirks of their own.

Typical Prey for Cheetahs:

Cheetahs feed upon smaller antelope such as puku or impala. When there is a shortage of food, hares or young wildebeest might end up as appetizers if the opportunity arises.

Because cheetahs rely on explosive chases, they gravitate toward prey they can catch and subdue quickly. 

Typical Prey for Leopards:

Leopards, on the other hand, are the ultimate opportunists of the bush. They hunt almost anything that crosses their path— ranging from rodents and monkeys to ground birds and even large antelopes that can easily outweigh them.

The diet of leopards includes a wide variety of animals such as jackals, antelopes, monkeys, duiker, impala, wildebeest, birds, rodents, rock dassies, hares, snakes, sheep, goats and even insects.

But its greater size and strength allows it to kill slightly larger wildlife. Even larger animals such as eland or wildebeest can occasionally be killed by leopard, (though that’s unusual).

A leopard’s unique party trick? Hoisting heavy meals up into trees, where they can dine in peace, out of reach from other hungry competitors. When times are tough, leopards don’t shy away from scavenging or switching things up: fish, insects, and even the occasional beetle are fair game.

Plus, leopards attain all their required moisture from their food, so they can survive without drinking water for extended periods of time.

Safari tip: Leopards are the only big cats that regularly stash food in trees to avoid thieves like hyenas. That’s why looking up into trees often rewards you with a sighting.

Leopard vs Cheetah – Preferred Habitats

So naturally this leads to one of the biggest differences between leopard and cheetah. Where you will find them…

As a (very) broad rule, if the terrain is ideal for cheetah, then it is not great for leopard and vice versa. So, if a game reserve is boasting about its great leopard sightings, don’t expect to see too many cheetah there as well.

Leopards like rocky outcrops and wooded terrain which they can use as cover as they approach. Cheetahs are happiest on the open savanna plains. Dense forests or heavily-wooded areas cramp their style, quite literally. If there’s enough room to run, the cheetah is happy.

Naturally, the larger game reserves such as the Kruger National Park, the Serengeti, the Masai Mara will have a range of terrain and so both leopard and cheetah can be found there, though usually, but not always in distinct parts of the park.

But if you are keen to see these animals, decide which one you most want to see? (See Scarcity later)

Best Places to See Cheetah in Southern Africa

• Kwandwe Game Reserve, Eastern Cape
• Samara Karoo Lodge, Eastern Cape
• Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, Northern Cape
• Shamwari Long Lee Manor, Eastern Cape
• Phinda Game Reserve, Northern KwaZulu Natal
• Central Kalahari (Botswana/South Africa)
• Kalahari Desert of Namibia
• Etosha National Park (Namibia).
• Kafue National Park (Zambia)

Best Places to See Leopard in Southern Africa

• Kruger National Park and its private game reserves – Sabi Sand and Timbavati
• Shamwari Long Lee Manor, Eastern Cape
• Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve (KwaZulu Natal)
• South Luangwa National Park, Zambia
• Lower Zambezi National Park, Zambia
• Okonjima Game Reserve, Namibia – leopard tracking experience
• Hwange National Park (Zimbabwe)

Leopard and Cheetah – Territorial

Leopard is also far more territorial than cheetah. They will stick to a particular part of a game reserve. Whereas cheetah will easily roam over a vast terrain.

Leopard vs Cheetah – Pecking Order

This is important to also note; Lions are at the top of the pecking order in terms of successful kills. Followed by Leopard and then Cheetah. So, if the carrying capacity of a game reserve is relatively low, due to poor soils, lack of rain etc., and there are lions in abundance, then cheetah will find it hard to co-exist.

Whereas leopards who act alone in stealth attacks, have a very different modus operandi to lions. So often they can co-exist relatively easily with lions. But if there are plentiful lion, then leopard will also find it harder going unless the terrain works particularly well for them.

Cheetah vs Leopard – Numbers in the wild

From humid rainforests and arid deserts to chilly mountain slopes and maddy swamps, leopards have carved out homes across vast swathes of Africa  — surpassing the cheetah’s more limited range.

So naturally it will not come as a surprise to you when I say that cheetah is the most vulnerable and scarce of these cats.

Estimated Populations in Africa and in South Africa

Animal	Numbers in Africa	In South Africa
Lion	± 23,000	± 13,000
Leopard	± 125,000	± 2,185 to 23,400
Cheetah	± 7,000	± 1,826

Indeed Cheetah is so scarce that many private game reserves in South Africa participate in a gene-pool sharing scheme. Whenever new cheetah cubs are born in their reserve, after they are reared from their mother’s milk, they are captured and transported to a different reserve. This ensures that the gene pool stays strong and there are no genetic inbreeding problems. This has worked incredibly successfully.

Due to their tendency to roam over vast distances, this has led to cheetah impacting local livestock farming far more than a leopard. Especially in Namibia.

In Namibia, in order to ensure than cheetahs are not shot by farmers to protect their livestock, there are several cheetah rehabilitation centres. Cheetahs are captured from farms – where they are in danger of getting shot – and taken to these centres to get them used to hunting wild prey again. (As hunting domesticated animals is much easier and so cheetah can get used to it.) Then later they are translocated back to the real wilderness.

Leopard vs Cheetah – shyness

The leopard is a shy and elusive animal. It likes to live in the shadows. That is how it remains a successful hunter. (And perhaps why its numbers remain high.)

But there are a few private reserves, especially in South Africa, which have worked closely with leopard over many decades. So that the leopards in these reserves know that a game vehicle is not a threat to them. Effectively they have become used to the vehicle and so you see them more often.

But this is not the norm!

(Note: It also means that many private game reserves can truthfully say that they have the “Big Five” but your chances of seeing all of them will be extremely low. As it is the leopard in the Big Five which may elude you.)

Cheetah vs Leopard – collared

And the final difference, partially due to their scarcity and the consequent need for translocation, is that you may find that the cheetah population is collared in many game reserves. This does not mean that they are tame in any way. It just allows the researchers to find them. And it means that your chances of tracking them in their vast open ranges is enhanced. But never guaranteed.

Leopards are virtually never collared! are virtually never collared!

Top Tips for Seeing Cheetah in Africa

So, if I have done my job correctly, the following tips should be obvious:

• Head to game reserves with lots of wide-open savanna or Kalahari plains
• If a reserve boasts about its leopard sightings, cheetahs are less likely to be seen.
• If it is HIGH on your priority list in South Africa, you may want to head to a reserve which has a cheetah rehabilitation programme as usually they know how to find their cheetah, and often they are collared so that the researchers can find them relatively easily.
• As they are so scarce, allow yourselves at least 3 nights in any one reserve in cheetah-friendly terrain. Preferably four.

Best places to see Cheetah in South Africa

• Eastern Cape Game Reserves especially Kwandwe, Samara and Shamwari – see below
• Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, Northern Cape
• Phinda Game Reserve, Northern KwaZulu Natal

Where to see Cheetah – Some favourite lodges in these areas (note: no guarantees)

• Phinda Mountain Lodge, Phinda, Northern KwaZulu Natal
• Amakhosi Safari Lodge, Northern KwaZulu Natal
• Shamwari Long Lee Manor, Eastern Cape
• Kwandwe Game Reserve, Eastern Cape
• Samara Karoo Lodge, Eastern Cape

Best places to see Cheetah in Southern Africa (Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe)

• Central Kalahari Game Reserve, Botswana
• Etosha National Park, Namibia.
• Kafue National Park, Zambia
• Okonjima Game Reserve, Namibia

Where to see Cheetah – Some favourite lodges in these areas (no guarantees!)

• Onguma Tented camp, Etosha
• Busanga Bush camp, Kafue, Zambia
• Okonjima, Central Highlands, Namibia
• Epako Lodge, Central Highlands, Namibia

Best places to see Cheetah in East Africa

• Serengeti National Park. Tanzania
• Masai Mara National Park, Kenya
• Amboseli National Park, Kenya
• Ruaha National Park, southern Tanzania

But the lodges are too numerous to mention!

Top Tips for Seeing Leopard in Africa

And in reverse, the best chances of seeing leopard in Africa are the following:

• Head to game reserves with lots of bushy terrain, wooded glades koppies, riverine vegetation and plentiful trees
• If a reserve boasts about its cheetah sightings, then it’s not usually the right terrain for leopards.
• If a reserve talks about plentiful leopard sightings, or leopards being used to the vehicle, then that’s a good sign. If the copy just mentions that they HAVE leopard, that doesn’t mean you will see it.
• As with cheetah, allow yourselves at least 3 nights in any one game reserve. Preferably four, to maximize your chances.

Best places to see Leopard in South Africa:

• Sabi Sands Game Reserve
• Timbavati Game Reserve
• Thornybush Game Reserve

Where to see Leopards – Some favourite lodges in these areas (no guarantees)

Any game lodge in the above reserves will offer a good chance of seeing leopard so these are just some of our favourites.

• Dulini River Lodge, Sabi Sands
• Londolozi, Sabi Sands
• Mala Mala, Sabi Sands
• Kings Camp, Timbavati
• Simbavati River Lodge, Timbavati

Best places to see leopard in Southern Africa (Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe)

• Moremi Game Reserve, Okavango Delta, Botswana
• Mana Pools National Park, Zimbabwe
• South Luangwa National Park, Zambia
• Lower Zambezi National Park, Zambia
• Okonjima Game Reserve, Namibia – leopard tracking experience

Where to see Leopard – Some favourite lodges in these areas (no guarantees)

All game lodges IN these game reserves will offer a good chance of seeing leopard, so these are just some of our favourites

• Camp Xakanaxa, Moremi
• Nyamatusi camp, Mana Pools
• Puku Ridge Camp, South Luangwa
• Chiawa Camp, Lower Zambezi

Best places to see Leopard in East Africa

• Serengeti National Park, Tanzania
• Ngorongoro National Park, Northern Tanzania
• Ruaha National Park, Southern Tanzania
• Maasai Mara National Park, Kenya
• Samburu National Park, Kenya

Again, too many lodges to mention by name.

Frequently Asked Questions

Leopard and Cheetah: Now why not spot the Difference on Safari?

Reading about leopards and cheetahs is fun. Seeing them on safari? Unforgettable.

Safari Planning in 3 Easy Steps:

1. Chat with us about what you’d love to see and do. Big cats? Big bodied wines? Wide open savanna plains?
2. We do the legwork curating a personalised safari, balancing bucket-list animals with the right lodges.
3. You relax, enjoy the anticipation, and start packing your binoculars.

Leopard vs. Cheetah: Do YOU know the difference? – was written by Cedarberg Africa

We’re African safari specialists with 30 years’ experience (and yes, we can tell a leopard from a cheetah at 100 paces). We focus on personalised, upmarket safaris that suit you – not the other way round.