Deja vu was felt by a number of rangers and trackers over the last few days, as amazingly, we once again were witness to two male leopards mating with a single female.

Once again, the father-son duo of Tu Tones and Camp Pan males were mating with the Tamboti female. This is at least the third time I have witnessed these two males mating with this same female at the same time, and it is still just as fascinating.

The dynamic in this series of mating bouts was slightly different to the previous times, however.

Previous mating bouts of a couple of years ago (with the Camp Pan male) produced no cubs for the Tamboti female. When the Maxabene 3:2 young male (now the Tu-Tones male) reached sexual maturity, his first mating experience that we know of was with the Tamboti female. And what an awkward affair it was! He didn’t appear to know what to do, and became quite aggressive at times when the female tried to initiate copulation. This was at the time that we expected him to be forced out of his father’s territory. No such thing happened however, and it was shortly after this that the first father/son/female mating combination was observed.

The Camp Pan male, as the dominant male in the territory, led the way during this mating marathon, and the Tu-Tones male was repeatedly shouldered out of the way by his father. A few months later, the female was once again observed mating with the same two males, but this time the Tu-Tones male seemed to have worked the whole thing out, taking a much more active role in the mating procedures.

After this second time of all three leopards mating, the Tamboti female fell pregnant and gave birth to two beautiful cubs, one of whom – the Tamboti Young female – is still alive and well and newly independent.

The fact that the Tu-Tones male was mating just as actively as his father during the second observed threesome, and the fact that the Camp Pan male had failed to produce a cub that we knew of since the Mashaba female over four years before, led us to suspect that he (Camp Pan) may be infertile, and the Tu-Tones male was definitely the father of the Tamboti female’s litter. This is merely conjecture, but at least with both males having mated with her, the cubs were safe from both, with each of them believing he was invested in the paternity.

This latest time, the Tamboti female wanted very little to do with the Camp Pan male. Although he would move over to her to initiate mating, the female would not participate with a great deal of enthusiasm, and for every time the Camp Pan male would mate with her, she would approach the Tu-Tones male and initiate mating four times over.

Ranger Don Heyneke and guests watch as the Tamboti females walks past them on approach to the Tu-Tones male. The Camp Pan male lies prone beyond the vehicle.

The Tu-Tones male, seemingly favoured by the Tamboti female, dismounts after a relatively non-aggressive mating bout. Notice the gash on his leg, which in no way slowed him down when it came to mating.

This was clear proof that she favours the Tu-Tones male over his father as a potential father for her cubs. Does she have some way of recognizing or sensing his superior virility? We cannot say, all we have is the evidence of our eyes.

What we do know is that we are excited at the prospect of the Tamboti female possibly falling pregnant with her second litter. With her last cub hunting relatively effectively (and even having the audacity to steal a kill from a pack of Wild Dogs yesterday morning – watch the blog for the full story), the time has come for mother and daughter to split, hence the arrival of the two male leopards on the scene.

But this is by no means all. The Tamboti female left her territory the week before this sighting occured, seeking out the Marthly male to the north, and mated with him too. Female leopards have regularly been seen to leave their territories in order to seek out neighbouring males to mate with, apparently in an effort to confuse the paternity of the cubs.

In the video above, the first violent interaction is with the Marthly male. The next two bouts are with the Tu-Tones male.

She has now mated with three males in the area, and should she fall pregnant, will have gone a long way towards ensuring that at least this danger to her cubs would be minimized.

Written and Photographed by: James Tyrrell
Filmed by: Christopher Kane-Berman