My visit to the upland zoo situated in the expansive Missouri wild animal sanctuary interesting and fulfilling. On entering the Amur leopard viewing area, the massive cat stared at visitors with its big brown eyes, constantly blinking in split second timing. The zoo surrounding was essentially an enclosure with a full mesh wire creating the leopard’s circular enclosure. At one of the far end corners was situated a tree like curvature, which appeared to have been extracted from a live tree then implanted on the zoo’s ground.
The Amur leopard peered at us briefly then decided to climb the tree curvature almost in haste as if it has spotted something on the tree. As the leopard climbed the tree, I noticed its long legs that give it a unique physique. It had extremely thick fur covering its body and protruded thickly around its long neck. This gave it the look of a male lion with its much conspicuous mane. The leopard them proceeded to lay its massive body on the tree like branch curvature on the corner of the zoo.
One could immediately notice its full stomach, giving it satisfactory look. The Amur leopard had beautiful black spots covering all it body. The beautiful black spots covered its body in a magnificent pattern beginning from its forehead and running all the way to its hind tail. The black spots around were surrounding both eye caps, and there was a conspicuous black spot on its nose.
On its belly, the spots diminished progressively around the groin area (Melvin 22). The leopard momentarily wiggled its tail in an effort to chase a straying fly buzzing around its back. The tail was unnaturally long and had spots with its end conspicuously black. The whiskers around the Amur leopard’s mouth were arranged in a pattern resembling the spanning wings of butterfly.
The ears looked erect showing that the leopard was all the time alert of its surrounding. It relaxed the ears briefly then erected them again almost on a 4 minutes interval. The leopard woke up again and purred, jumped down on the zoo ground and decided clasp its long claws on the soft ground. It did this for almost 30 seconds both on its front limbs and the hind limbs.
Finally, the leopard walked towards nearby shallow water pool and stuck out its tongue to drink some water. “The Amur leopard is indeed a beautiful member of the cat family” (Melvin 23).
