1) "The Saying: CAN THE LEOPARD CHANGE HIS SPOTS? Who Said It: Jeremiah When: 700 B.C. The Story behind It: Found in the Old Testament (Jer. 13:23), these words are spoken by the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah. He tells the people of Jerusalem-personified in the form of a shepherdess-that the city will soon be attacked by an enemy from the north. The shepherdess, a vile and hopeless creature, has been deserted by her family and friends. Jeremiah implores the woman to give up her evil ways and live according to God's laws. The prophet realizes, however, that it might be impossible for the woman to heed his warning. He says: "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." " Source and further information: http://www.trivia-library.com/b/origins-of-sayings-can-the-leopard-change-his-spots.htm 2) "TONY EASTLEY: Yes, the saying goes that the leopard can't change its spots, perhaps not even the Communist Party of China, but that's been challenged by the discovery in Borneo of an entirely new species of leopard. As Barbara Miller reports the animal is genetically distinct and has changed the number and prominence of its markings. BARBARA MILLER: It had been thought the Borneo leopard was the same species as is found on the mainland. But tests have shown it's physically different. Its fur is darker and it has more distinct spots. And it's genetically distinct too. Stephen O'Brien is head of the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity at the US National Cancer Institute. He carried out the genetic analysis on the leopard. STEPHEN O'BRIEN: This particular species of clouded leopard, it turned out, gave us some very interesting genetic differences, differences that, when they were measured using the tools of evolutionary genetics, said that they had probably represented a sizeable difference between two separate populations. And the differences between them were comparable to the distances that we might see in the DNA of a lion versus a tiger, or a jaguar versus a leopard. BARBARA MILLER: It's thought the Borneo leopard separated from its parental stock somewhere in the order of one-and-a-half million years ago. It's the first new species of big cat to have been discovered for more than 100 years. Stephen O'Brien says that's pretty exciting. STEPHEN O'BRIEN: For the long time, naturalists have sort of looked at the cat family with curiosity about the relationship between different species of cats, but there wasn't much discussion about what the cat species were. Everybody knew what a lion was, everybody knew what a snow leopard was, everybody knows what an ocelot is, or what a cheetah is." Source and further information: http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2007/s1873283.htm Further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bornean_Clouded_Leopard 3) "Rare footage of a leopard changing its spots." Source and further information: http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/a/a_leopard_never_changes_its_spots.asp 4) "Females give birth to a litter of 1 to 5 cubs after a gestation period of about 85 to 93 days. Initially, the young are blind and helpless, much like the young of many other cats. Unlike adults, the kittens' spots are "solid"—completely dark rather than dark rings." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clouded_leopard