Remote cameras are an incredible tool that enable scientists to safely monitor, study, and photograph rare animals. Scientists working in the forests of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, broke a record by observing an individual Sunda clouded leopard on camera traps for more than six years.
The Sunda clouded leopard is among the rarest and most mysterious wild cats on Earth, found only on Sumatra and Borneo. Scientists consider this species a special link between big cats and smaller wild cats. A new peer-reviewed study published recently in Biotropica outlines more than 15 years of scientific research between the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research and the Sabah Forestry Department, plus Panthera, which also discussed the research in a new blog post.
With so many years of research, the scientists identified numerous individual Sunda clouded leopards, including the oldest wild leopard ever recorded, a female that the researchers believe was approximately 8.5 years old at the time of the last recording.
The very long-term study ran from 2007 to 2023 and comprised 13 different camera-trap surveys. Over 15 and a half years, scientists identified individuals moving between different forest preserves, sometimes moving nearly 40 kilometers (nearly 25 miles). Not only was the study expansive from a temporal perspective, but being able to track animals using more than a dozen remote camera traps across such a wide range provided key insights into their lives and behavior.
“Long-term, large-scale monitoring allows us to move beyond snapshots and truly understand how wild cat populations persist over time,” says Wai-Ming Wong, Director of Small Cat Conservation Science at Panthera. “Without it, we risk missing the very dynamics that determine their survival.”
As Panthera explains, the long-term study also addressed a significant blind spot in Sunda clouded leopard research. While all leopards are elusive, females are particularly difficult to study and track. They spend more time in forest canopies than their male counterparts, meaning they are picked up less by cameras. Females are detected 68 percent less often, Panthera says.
“The under-detection of females in the Dermakot-Tangkulap landscape could prevent us from accurately tracking the population’s breeding success,” explains Thye Lim Tee, Project Coordinator at Panthera Malaysia. “To better protect the Sunda clouded leopard, our future assessments should view the lack of female detections as a sign to explore the forest interior more thoroughly, rather than assuming they simply aren’t present.”
Before this recent long-term study, the longest recorded residence time was 5.92 years, held by a male. Now, with a female identified on camera for 6.51 years, a new record holder has emerged.
As the researchers explain, only two studies have previously estimated the Sunda clouded leopard’s lifespan in the wild, and neither was as long as the most recent one. Lifespan is a key metric in biological research.
“The female clouded leopard at the heart of this study spent years navigating a landscape shaped by logging and human activity — and outlasted every wild clouded leopard on record,” Panthera writes. “Her persistence is a reminder of what these cats are capable of, and what becomes possible when we give them the science and habitat they need to survive.”
Image credits: Panthera, Sabah Forestry Department, Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research. Referenced study, ‘Estimating Sunda Clouded Leopard Lifespans From Minimum Residence Times via Long-Term Photo-Tracking,’ was published in Biotropica.