How Did the Leopard Get His Spots? Scientists Explain -By: Frances Perraudin

A new study from researchers at Bristol University in the U.K. has shown that author Rudyard Kipling was more right than you'd think.

In Rudyard Kipling's famous Just So Stories of 1902, the ‘How The Leopard Got His Spots' story describes how an Ethiopian hunter paints spots on a leopard to help it blend into the “speckly, patchy-blatchy shadows” of the forest. “Apart from the painting part, Kipling was quite right,” said Allen to the Guardian. “The leopard got its spots from a life in forested habitats, where it made use of the trees and nocturnal hunting.