Africa Wild

A melanistic morph of the leopard occurs, particularly in mountainous areas and rain forests. The black colour is heritable and caused by recessive gene loci
In Africa, black leopards are much less common, as melanism is not an adaptive advantage in the savannah. Dark coloration provides poor camouflage and makes hunting difficult. In the dense forests of the Ethiopian Highlands, however, the black leopard is much more common than in Africa generally; as many as one in five leopards may be melanistic.

Pseudo-melanism (abundism) occurs in leopards. A pseudo-melanistic leopard has a normal background colour, but the spots are more densely packed than normal and merge to obscure the golden-brown background colour. Any spots on the flanks and limbs that have not merged into the mass of swirls and stripes are unusually small and discrete, rather than forming rosettes. The face and underparts are paler and dappled like those of ordinary spotted leopards