Clouded leopard skin

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Clouded leopard skin

The clouded leopard fur is the fur of the clouded leopard , a rare big cat from southeast Asia. It was also traded as the turtle leopard or turtle leopard based on the fur pattern .

The clouded leopard's homeland are the southern foothills of the Himalayas : Nepal , Sikkim , Bhutan and Assam ; southern China, rear India , the Malay Peninsulas and the Sunda Islands Sumatra and Borneo . The species used to be found in Taiwan and Hainan .

In the period after the Second World War , the eye-catching fur was processed into jackets and coats, albeit only to a limited extent because of its limited occurrence.

In 1971 the International Fur Trade Federation recommended that retailers refrain from processing clouded leopard skins entirely. In the Washington Convention , the clouded leopard ( Neofelis nebulosa ) is now in List 1 (absolute trade ban), in the EC Regulation 750/2013 in Appendix A. The initial listing and maximum protection took place on June 20, 1976. According to the Federal Nature Conservation Act, the Clouded leopard since August 31, 1980.

hide

Chinese clouded leopard skin as a rug

The fur is about 75 to 105 centimeters long and thus has about the size and structure of a small leopard fur ; the overall impression is less colorful than that of the leopard . The tail has a considerable length of 70 to 90 centimeters. The paws are large and wide, the claws unusually long.

The coat color is ashy gray in yellowish-brownish, partly reddish shades, the belly is whitish. The basic color recedes strongly due to the intense staining. The children's dress shows deep black spots on a yellowish background, which only lighten in the course of the development to the characteristic drawing. Depending on the origin, there is a wide variation in the extent and shape of the coat pattern . About six longitudinal lines run across the neck, the two outer lines very broad, the inner lines very narrow. The eel line on the back consists, not always in full length, of two black stripes, which, however, usually disintegrate into spots. In addition to the double eel line typical of the clouded leopard skin, the large, black-rimmed, sloping spots on the sides with the "courtyards" darkened compared to the basic color in a tortoiseshell pattern, after which the fur was given the trade name tortoise leopard in German, are particularly characteristic . The English animal name clouded leopard describes the spots as clouds, the two names corresponding to the German are also used for French, panthère nebuleuse and, according to a German specialist book, also panthère tortoise .

The shape of the spots is varied, including long, broad (streaky), oval-like, angled (angular). Sometimes there are full spots (including spots, dots), sometimes they have a dark border, sometimes on all sides or on one side. With a complete border, the middle is tinted lighter, sometimes also dotted. If there is a border on one side, the tint of the non-bordered pages gradually changes into the basic color. The spots on the lower reaches and the underside (middle) are smaller (full spots, partly spotted), partly they are less distributed. The spots are usually arranged in broad transverse or diagonal bands. The tail has dark rings. The unusual type of fur drawing is astonishingly similar to the much smaller marble cat, which is also native to Southeast Asia . Black or almost white clouded leopards are also known.

The hair is short, close-fitting, coarser and weaker in growth. The clouded leopard hair is classified as hard by dividing the fur types into the hair fineness classes silky, fine, medium-fine, coarse and hard. Details about the hair change do not seem to be known.

  • Three varieties can be distinguished:
1. Indian Himalayas - Southern China
Ocher yellow, often with a gray tinge; partly dark brownish yellow, side spots formed into broad transverse bands. Tail drawn with large irregular rings.
Formosa (Taiwan): Shorter tail.
2. Back India
Big, especially in the north. - Gray to gray-yellow. - Tail with numerous dark rings.
3. Sunda Islands: Sumatra - Borneo
Larger than the Indian variety, basic color dirty yellow.

History, trade

The fur was originally used by the local population, probably mainly for the cloaks of hunters and warriors. Later it was used in international trade in the manner of hunting trophies, as rugs and wall decorations and as fur blankets . As a result of the small area of ​​occurrence, especially in remote mountain areas, the yield was very low. From the 1950s to the protection of the clouded leopard at the beginning of the 1970s, the fur was also processed into clothing in the western world. In 1971 it was therefore assumed that the increased demand for “spotted goods” had also increased the occurrence of clouded leopard skins and that the populations were cleared to a greater extent.

The name Schildkröt-Leopard instead of clouded leopard for the fur is said to have come up with wild goods traders from the tobacco goods trading center Niddastraße in Frankfurt am Main, including Bruno Seiler, because it seemed more catchy to them as a trade name.

The raw fur is delivered open, not peeled off round.

  • Clouded leopard skin clothing

  • Inhabitants of South Borneo with capes (1879/80)

  • Taiwanese (probably from the Rukai tribe , self-designation " Clouded leopard people") with a vest made of Formosa clouded leopards (around 1900)

  • Coat, front view (before 1972)

  • same coat; Back view

Numbers and facts

  • Between 1907 and 1909 there was an annual average of 200 clouded leopard skins.
  • In 1911 , the tobacco shop Emil Brass wrote that he had seen numerous clouded leopard skins in the Shanghai markets , none of which had been fully preserved.
  • In 1958 , one of the rare images of a piece of clothing made of clouded leopard or turtle leopard fur, a paletot, can be found in the fur model magazine Hermelin , issue 1, p. 7, model no.5547, made by the Straube-Daiber company in Stuttgart.
  • In 1965 the fur consumption for a sheet of 6 to 10 pelts sufficient for a clouded leopard coat was specified (so-called coat “body” ). It was based on a board with a length of 112 centimeters and an average width of 150 centimeters and an additional sleeve section. This corresponds roughly to a fur material for a slightly exhibited coat of clothing size 46 from 2014. The maximum and minimum fur numbers can result from the different sizes of the sexes of the animals, the age groups and their origin. Depending on the type of fur, the three factors have different effects.
  • In 1975 , at the Frankfurt fur fair , Peter Böttger, the Frankfurt specialist for spotted big cat skins , offered his last, now protected, turtle leopard skins.

See also

Web links

Commons : Clouded leopard skins  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Commons : Clouded leopard skin clothing  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

annotation

  1. ↑ The information for a body was only given to make it easier to compare the types of fur. In fact, bodies were only made for small (up to about muskrat size ) and common types of fur, and also for pieces of fur , never for clouded leopard fur . The following dimensions for a coat body were taken as a basis: body = height 112 cm, width below 160 cm, width above 140 cm, sleeves = 60 × 140 cm.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c d Christian Franke / Johanna Kroll: Jury Fränkel ´s Rauchwaren-Handbuch 1988/89 . 10. revised and supplemented new edition, Rifra-Verlag Murrhardt, p. 99.
  2. ↑ www.wisia.de Last accessed January 22, 2015.
  3. ↑ a b c d Paul Schöps: Snow leopard and clouded leopard . In: Das Pelzgewerbe Vol. X / New Series, 1959 No. 3, Hermelin Verlag Dr. Paul Schöps, Berlin a. a., pp. 107-109.
  4. ↑ Fritz Schmidt : The book of the fur animals and fur . FC Mayer Verlag, Munich 1970, pp. 150-151.
  5. ↑ a b Heinrich Dathe , Paul Schöps, with the assistance of 11 specialists: Fur Animal Atlas . VEB Gustav Fischer Verlag Jena, 1986, pp. 216-217.
  6. ↑ Paul Schöps, Kurt Häse: The fineness of the hair - the fineness classes . In: Das Pelzgewerbe Vol. VI / New Series, 1955 No. 2, Hermelin-Verlag Dr. Paul Schöps, Leipzig, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, pp. 39–40 (Note: fine (partly silky); medium-fine (partly fine); coarse (medium-fine to coarse)).
  7. ^ Paul Schöps: Fellwerk der Großkatzen . In: Das Pelzgewerbe Neue Episode vol. XXI, No. 2, 1971, p. 14
  8. ↑ Without indication of the author: correction . In: Winckelmann Pelzmarkt No. 69, February 26, 1971, p. 8. (Bruno Seiler, Niddastraße 58, Frankfurt am Main).
  9. ↑ www.culture.tw: Cheryl Robbins: Rukai tribe - people of the cloud leopard ( Memento of the original from January 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . July 18, 2008 (English). Retrieved January 22, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.culture.tw
  10. ↑ Paul Schöps: The fur work of the big cats . Primary source Emil Brass .
  11. ↑ Emil Brass : From the realm of fur . 1st edition, published by the "Neue Pelzwaren-Zeitung and Kürschner-Zeitung", Berlin 1911, p. 494.
  12. ↑ Paul Schöps u. a .: The material requirements for fur clothing . In: Das Pelzgewerbe Vol. XVI / New Series 1965 No. 1, Hermelin-Verlag Dr. Paul Schöps, Berlin a. a., pp. 7-12.
  13. ↑ Editor: The last turtle leopards with Peter Böttger . In: Die Pelzwirtschaft No. 4, CB-Verlag Carl Boldt, Berlin, April 14, 1975, p. 191.